tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33665342012-01-17T06:55:47.329-07:00Pop cultural criticism - plus the occasional egocentric socio/political commentary by Bill Sherman (popculturegadabout AT yahoo.com).Billnoreply@blogger.comBlogger37761100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-44375322117146990422012-01-08T16:00:00.004-07:002012-01-08T22:08:50.212-07:00

“THIS MUST BE WHAT THEY CALL FATE. I GUESS.” It’s been a while since I’ve impulsively picked a new manga title to read, but a chance viewing of a YouTube clip from its anime adaptation got me seeking Oh!Great’s Tenjo Tenge (Viz Signature) recently. Fortunately for my manga explorations, the series has been reissued in large volume “Full Contact” Editions collecting two of the original

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-3345117649980629592012-01-02T11:07:00.008-07:002012-01-02T20:21:23.238-07:00

“SOLITUDE IS REALLY COOL. . . WHEN YOU’VE CHOSEN IT.” A charmingly illustrated French funny animal comic Renaud Dillies’ Bubbles & Gondola (NBM) recounts the “Adventure of Charlie the Mouse,” a would-be writer who is struggling to finish a book of “prose poems.”When I first started reading this graphic novel and realized that one of its foci was gonna be the young mouse’s writer’s block, I have

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-25384703078584417592011-12-31T09:49:00.003-07:002011-12-31T14:42:54.067-07:00

FACE, MEET FAN! Most weekday mornings, I follow a fairly boring schedule: wake up worrying about finances, get up and feed the dogs, start the coffee machine while the dogs follow their morning outside routine, bring ‘em back into the house and head for the study to check email and perhaps do a little Blogcritics editing before getting ready for my day job. Pretty mundane. But Friday saw a

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-55527487310814331662011-12-26T16:41:00.005-07:002011-12-26T21:08:08.412-07:00

“JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY!” The latest entry in Titan Books’ “Simon & Kirby Library,” Crime is a hefty 320-page collection of work predominately produced in the forties for the era’s “true crime comics.” Having already amassed an impressive body of comic book work in the super-hero genre (creating, among others, Captain America), Joe Simon and Jack Kirby turned to other genres when it looked as

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-27772763899057651852011-12-17T11:31:00.008-07:002011-12-17T15:06:43.917-07:00

“BLOODTHIRSTY VAMPIRE LIVES AGAIN!”Though it doesn’t by any means claim to be a definitive history of the influential British horror film company, Marcus Hearn’s The Hammer Vault (Titan Books) serves as a tantalizing overview of Hammer Films. Following the company’s releases chronologically -- from its earliest sci-fi releases (Quatermass Xperiment, X - the Unknown), its bloody gothic remakes (

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-80364184120595626982011-12-10T13:54:00.005-07:002011-12-10T21:58:14.862-07:00

“SHE IS A RUMOR. A WISP OF SMOKE.” A posthumous “collaboration” between the late best-selling pulpster and one of his most vocal admirers, Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins’ The Consummata (Hard Case Crime) is a follow-up to Spillane’s 1967 best-seller, The Delta Factor. Introducing a new Spillane creation, Morgan the Raider, a “robbin’ hood” who “never took any spoils from anyone who didn’t

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-10673127369524368542011-12-03T17:22:00.007-07:002011-12-08T22:36:40.259-07:00

“MY HOME IS THE REGIMENT.” The eighth volume in Titan Books’ continued reprint of the hard-nosed British war comic, Charley's War: Hitler's Youth opens with an intriguing plotline. Chronicling the Great War adventures of young Charlie Bourne, serving as an assistant sniper on the Western Front at this point in the storyline, the series imagines a young Adolph Hitler as a corporal in the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-62996755294346956112011-11-24T11:10:00.011-07:002011-12-11T10:29:26.047-07:00

“THEY SAY A HEART’S NOT QUITE A HEART UNTIL IT’S BEEN BROKEN.” Of all the eighties groups to affix the word “human” to their name (League, Sexual Response), Ohio’s Human Switchboard were arguably the most deserving of the moniker. A garage-y threesome who combined the boho sensitivities and sounds of early Velvets and Patti Smith with a more poppish flavor, the group released one great album in

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-24058170633016814412011-11-17T21:57:00.006-07:002011-11-18T06:10:57.972-07:00

”HE HAS ROUSED IN ME A MOST TERRIBLE ENEMY!” The first in a four-volume series by the creator of Vampire Hunter D, Yashakiden: The Demon Princess (Digital Manga Press) is an agreeably lurid yarn set in Demon City Shinjuku, an earthquake ravaged burg where reality is mutable and monstrous types roam the streets with impunity. It is, author Hideyuki Kikuchi explains, “a city where life was lived

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-63476464700163692602011-11-10T18:36:00.005-07:002011-12-11T10:31:06.265-07:00

"WHEN ONE'S MESSED UP, EVEN THE STUPID FISH KNOW IT." From its very opening -- police find a junked out vehicle with two bodies, a long-dead male and a more recently deceased dog -- you know that Takashi Murakami's Stargazing Dog (NBM) is going to end on a melancholy note. And so this best-selling manga does, though writer/artist Murakami also manages to imbue his effectively sentimental dog tale

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-13882010031784251202011-11-08T06:43:00.004-07:002011-11-08T06:51:39.377-07:00

WHERE I’VE BEEN: Where I’ve been is in the nether zone between one mailing address and the next. Four years after our move from IL to AZ, it became increasingly apparent that the place we’d called home had gotten too expensive for us. When we first moved to Safford, AZ, the town was still in the midst of a mining boom (copper being the ore of choice) and housing was at a dear premium. One long

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-66183571659364055622011-10-16T12:25:00.005-07:002011-10-16T12:45:37.052-07:00

“I’M YOUR BAD GUY.” Not too startling to see Max Allan Collins popping up on two titles (one a posthumous “collaboration” with his idol Mickey Spillane) as a part of Hard Case Crime’s new re-launch -- the man has been a hard-boiled fanboy and a prolific pb pulp craftsman for years now. With Quarry’s Ex, Collins takes us back to the mid-career of his brutal hero, a Vietnam vet and former hitman

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-73664815110180119082011-10-10T14:31:00.007-07:002011-10-10T16:51:54.041-07:00

“THE WORLD NEEDS A VILLAIN AT PRESENT.” The idea of centring a series on Sherlock Holmes’ arch-enemy, Professor James Moriarty, is nothing new. British writer John Gardner (who also successfully commandeered the James Bond franchise for many years) wrote a trio of Moriarty novels in the 1970’s, though his approach was not as fantastickal as the crew who put together Moriarty: The Dark Chamber

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-46904614268857987952011-10-06T08:21:00.007-07:002011-10-07T06:22:19.164-07:00

“I WAS THINKING IN A SOFT-PEDAL MODE.” With the latest entry in Titan Books' ongoing series of “Modesty Blaise” reprints, Million Dollar Game, Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero returned to the strip after Britisher Neville Colvin's six-year stint. The largest running artist to assay Peter O'Donnell's adventuress, Romero was also the most unabashedly sexy. His Modesty was more voluptuous and

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-88281058350461813332011-09-29T07:08:00.004-07:002011-09-29T17:46:58.925-07:00

“NO POINT SECOND-GUESSING YOUR FIGHT AFTER THE BELL’S ALREADY RUNG.” Having announced their new beginnings with the hardbound publication of a new Lawrence Block novel, the folks at Hard Case Crime have happily recommenced releasing fresh paperback pulps. One of the first of these, Christa Faust’s Choke Hold, is the second in a series featuring Angel Dare, a hard-bitten former porn star on the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-4737627219827442042011-09-27T06:37:00.004-07:002011-09-27T18:10:22.052-07:00

“YOU DON’T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON HERE, DO YOU?” An energetic low-life comedy of noir, Viktor Kalvachev’s Blue Estate (Image Comics) follows a large cast of schemers and patsies through a convoluted crime plot involving real estate scams, drugs and Russian mobsters. Though the twelve-issue comic mini-series opens on the narration of Roy Devine Jr., a clueless nerd of a would-be

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-32292638674504941902011-09-21T05:43:00.004-07:002011-09-22T05:47:23.129-07:00

“THE UNIVERSE IS SO MYSTERIOUS.” Having taken on stats, calculus, even the theory of relativity, the crew behind the Manga Guide series have elected to think bigger. Kenji Ishikawa and Yutaka Hiiragi’s The Manga Guide to the Universe (No Starch Press) tackles the huge huge questions: the theoretical origins of the universe, its shape and size, the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. As

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-4836385065761236062011-09-16T01:53:00.001-07:002011-09-16T21:12:52.594-07:00

“I’VE BECOME A REAL ROAD WARRIOR.” Cartoonist, world traveler and observer of comic minutia, Lewis Trondheim returns with a fourth volume of Little Nothings (NBM). Subtitled “My Shadow in the Distance,” this newest set of funny animal autobiographical one-page strips follows our man/bird hero as he travels with his family on vacation in the U.S.A. (spying a “real cowboy” out west, he’s

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-61119881932784415062011-09-13T18:26:00.009-07:002011-09-14T18:10:02.660-07:00

“WHAT CROOKED GAMBLERS SAY DOESN'T MEAN MUCH TO ME.” A prolific crafter of genre fiction and TV/movie novelizations, Richard Wormser's writing life was ironically encapsulated by the man himself in a posthumously published memoir, How to Become A Complete Nonentity. Yet Wormser (not to be confused with a younger filmmaker of the same name) had a full career writing westerns and crime fiction

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-77645870790876063302011-09-10T09:09:00.004-07:002011-09-10T16:12:42.539-07:00

“BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING, MAN.” A bit fat round-up of martial arts madness and seventies drive-in delirium, Kagan McLeod’s Infinite Kung Fu (Top Shelf Productions) is a massive 464-page graphic novel crammed full of chopsocky goodness. Set in an alternate Martial World, the sprawling epic centers on Yang Lei Kung, a low-level soldier in the wicked emperor’s army who is recruited by one of the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-13311022644025334022011-09-05T10:04:00.008-07:002011-09-05T11:27:52.255-07:00

“A GIRL DIDN’T WANT TO OVERSTAY HER WELCOME.” Like a good many professional storytellers, Lawrence Block has written under more than one name over the years: perhaps the most startling nom du plume is that of “Jill Emerson.” The authoress of seven prior novels that include “sensitive lesbian fiction” and “candid erotica,” the pseudonymous Miz E. has now crafted a Hard Case Crime novel entitled

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-12486987026921984012011-09-01T06:45:00.003-07:002011-09-01T06:47:21.189-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VID: Here's an intriguing video from arty rockers The Veda Rays, cut to some classic images from underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-91013936354131865932011-08-30T21:57:00.009-07:002011-08-31T04:58:49.012-07:00

CONQUEROR WORMS AND PESTULANT REVELERS: It makes sense that American author Edgar Allan Poe would have been the first writer to receive a “Graphic Classics” collection. His fiction has inspired a vast amount of adaptations over the years, including prior comics art retellings -- so many that one suspects a sizable majority are more familiar with the adaptations than they are the prose original

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-85449212364459569342011-08-26T07:14:00.006-07:002011-08-26T17:30:56.462-07:00

“HOME OF THE HOPELESSLY NETWORKED BRAVE” You know you’re in for some post-Apocalyptic hi-jinx when a comic opens on an image of a trashed-out California highway and the first narration says simply, “The Emptiness.” The hero surveying said emptiness (which we’re told is Apache Junction, AZ, even though an interstate sign is clearly marked “California”) is Sgt. Drake McCoy, a lone wolf type

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-37627471994842756712011-08-20T18:11:00.004-07:002011-08-20T18:15:03.195-07:00

THOSE DANGEROUS CELL PHONES: For a taste of "Kinky & Cosy"-ness, here's a promo set of animated strips:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-22421113546040155952011-08-20T13:21:00.009-07:002011-08-20T18:16:44.983-07:00

“YES, I SEE THAT CLOUD OF BLACK SMOKE.” The shiny die-cut cover to Kinky & Cosy (NBM) provides a strong indication of where this collection of comic strips is coming from: featuring google-eyed headshots of the book’s eight-year-old title twins, the collection opens to the image of two grinning death’s head skulls. A series of gag comics by Belgian cartoonist Nix, the strip is being compared

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-50877704670510110322011-08-20T06:45:00.005-07:002011-08-20T18:16:27.480-07:00

“YOU AIN’T NO VICTIM; YOU’RE JUST BEING NAÏVE.” The idea of an alt-Americana band from Helsinki may sound a bit incongruous, but with Finland’s the Latebirds, the results are more convincing than you’d initially expect. Last of the Good Ol’ Days (Second Motion), the band’s U.S. debut, states the ‘birds’ case clearly. An enticing collection of rock and folk sounds smartly delivered, Days

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-3984292787621231442011-08-17T06:22:00.001-07:002011-08-17T06:23:45.084-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VID: Been playing a lotta John Prine lately. Songs like this are the reason why:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-85714441277299756702011-08-14T11:00:00.013-07:002011-08-14T15:25:26.838-07:00

“THE SEA CONCEALS A MONSTROUS, UNIVERSAL CANNIBALISM.” An action fictioner in the early years of the pulp magazines, H.D. Couzens is not a well-known name a hundred years later, a situation that the pulp revivalists at Black Dog Books hope to redress with King Corrigan’s Treasure, the first publication of Couzens’ short stories. Subtitled “The Collected Adventures of Billy Englehart,”

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-80322130032985619642011-08-06T17:15:00.005-07:002011-08-06T22:11:38.052-07:00

“FREEDOM IS THE OBSTACLE THAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND THAT PERFECTION.” With a title like The Homeland Directive (Top Shelf Productions), you might immediately assume that this Robert (Surrogates) Venditti/Mike Huddleston graphic novel has its roots in post-911 angst. That it does, though the political thriller also looks back to earlier shadow government cautionaries like The Parallax View. Its

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-56015128408778765002011-08-02T17:59:00.005-07:002011-08-02T21:03:32.499-07:00

“THERE. THAT IS THE REVELATION.” Look at the cover to the first issue of Image Comics’ The Vault (Image Comics), with its skull face looming over an unwary skin diver, and the first thing long-term comics lovers will think of is the EC series, The Vault of Horror. But on the basis of the first issue of this Sam Sarkar and Garrie Gastonny (both responsible for Caliber) mini-series, The Vault

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-65273553980319618722011-07-30T17:02:00.011-07:002011-07-31T08:56:29.569-07:00

“NO LONG-HAIRED ANARCHIST FROM CALIFORNIA CAN RUN THIS COURT.” The latest entry in cartoonist/historian Rick Geary’s “Treasury of XXth Century Murder,” The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti (NBM) tackles a still-disputed trial from the 1920’s. On April 15, 1920, two employees of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company, carrying $15,776.51 in payroll envelopes were robbed and murdered in the streets of

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-44728261819911701482011-07-30T12:44:00.002-07:002011-07-30T12:46:29.244-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: Here's a shot of our Southern belle Savannah:THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-86266514417043970042011-07-24T13:31:00.002-07:002011-07-24T13:34:12.494-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: Ziggy Stardust has his way with a long leather chew stick:THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-76504004905001671872011-07-23T10:44:00.005-07:002011-07-23T14:33:58.228-07:00

”YOU COME FROM WARRIOR STOCK.” A newborn comics company in the tradition of genre steeped small-presses like Boom! And Radical, Benaroya Publishing recently launched its first titles under Image Comics’ publishing and distribution banner. I recently received a pair of the new line’s titles, both mid story -- a somewhat dubious tactic since you’d think a new publisher would want to send reviewers

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-68717284669665875772011-07-16T07:11:00.007-07:002011-07-16T11:24:31.594-07:00

CRAWLING THRU THE NIGHT I’ve read quite a few of Bill Pronzini’s “Nameless Detective” novels over the years, and I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t paid full price for any of ‘em (just another poverty-struck free-lancer, lookin' to do his reading on the cheap). The sturdy p.i. series has seen several publishers, with many of its entries ultimately showing up on the remainder tables in the end.

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-27162871906896009322011-07-14T06:07:00.002-07:002011-07-14T06:18:40.299-07:00

“SORRY IS A THING FOR DISOBEDIENT BOYS.” Self-rated “mature,” Radical Comics’ six-ish mini-series Damaged opens on a suitably violent note. In it, a heavily scarred Frankenstein-ian figure with a police badge scar on his chest walks into a redneck bar in Dunbar, Oklahoma. He’s looking for a quartet responsible for the rape and strangulation of two teenaged girls, but when most of the bar

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-9112922841815032222011-07-11T04:57:00.003-07:002011-07-11T05:21:22.940-07:00

FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, LIGHTNING IN THE AIR: When I stepped outside the house Saturday morning, the first thing I noticed was the sound of thunder on the mountain. Mt. Graham was cloud covered, and you could see occasional lightning flashes, but from what I could tell at a distance there wasn’t any rain falling. The second thing I noticed was the smell of smoke, but I couldn’t see where it was

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-71680072733878993692011-07-07T06:17:00.003-07:002011-07-07T06:23:02.558-07:00

MID-WEEK MUSIC VID: Been several weeks since I've done one of these: here's a video from Finland's the Latebirds.

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-3558049064946919702011-07-05T09:22:00.004-07:002011-07-05T09:33:00.821-07:00

“IT ISN’T REVENGE I WANT, JESSE, IT’S A RECKONING!” With the final entry of Radical Comics’ four-ish re-imagining of the Wyatt Earp legend, Earp: Saints for Sinners, the big showdown between our hero, Doc Holiday, and the James Gang (not to be confused with the 70’s band that gave us Joe Walsh) against an army of Pinkerton goons takes place. Lots of bloody shoot-outs, plus a sequence where Earp

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-46989401864012988032011-07-04T08:19:00.007-07:002011-07-04T10:40:45.708-07:00

“BEING KIDNAPPED IS NEVER QUITE THE WAY YOU IMAGINE IT WILL BE.” After recently following The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I strongly felt the urge to return to the murderous British countryside. Though a much more recent work than Dame Agatha Christie’s debut, Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie still contains the cozy elements of classic estate murder mystery: dark deeds done

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-31606042671404256952011-07-02T07:23:00.005-07:002011-07-02T15:10:49.063-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: S'been a shitty week, but not so shitty that we can't put up a pet pic starring Boomer Willow Cat and a stuffed dog.THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-35419960682644124252011-06-26T10:39:00.004-07:002011-06-26T10:43:41.416-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: From a photo shoot captured in this Facebook montage by my sweetie, here's Ziggy Stardust in barking mode: THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-25942035224169485982011-06-26T09:35:00.006-07:002011-07-23T14:33:11.228-07:00

CRUSING THE VISTA: We paid off the PT Cruiser (a.k.a. Silver Surfer a.k.a. Boogie) a few months back, so now it’s time for it to start acting up, right? The A-C died recently -- not a good thing when you’re living in an AZ heat wave. Turned out there was a leak in the crimp to the hose feeding coolant. Had it scheduled to be replaced on the weekend -- after days of driving round the desert

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-21790100727224158202011-06-24T17:42:00.005-07:002011-07-09T05:59:49.938-07:00

“SO SUE ME . . . RHINOS ARE IMPULSIVE!“ A snappy blend of Boy and His Dog sci-fi plus funny animal comics, Aaron Neathery’s “Endtown“ is one of the underseen gems in web comics. Originally debuting on the Modern Tales site -- and more recently migrated to GoComics -- the weekday series charts the travails of the beleaguered underground survivors of a mutant spawning radiation plague. Some of

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-58357794260984666572011-06-18T16:39:00.010-07:002011-06-19T06:03:06.011-07:00

“ORDER AND METHOD” A hot summer morning getting the PT Cruiser’s air conditioning repaired – so to keep myself from stressing too much about the upcoming prognosis, I sat in the shop revisiting a classic whodunnit. Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1921) is a genre milestone for two reasons: it’s the mystery grand dame's first novel -- and the debut of her first established

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-80676216653437314572011-06-17T05:06:00.004-07:002011-06-17T15:13:08.300-07:00

“SOLVE THE EASY BITS FIRST.” The latest volume of “Modesty Blaise” strip reprints from Titan Books, The Double Agent opens with plenty of plaudits for creator Peter O’Donnell, the man who guided the adventuress/agent through nearly forty years of prose and newspaper comics adventures. Many of the comics lights that you’d expect to see in a tribute to the man show up -- Neal Gaiman, Greg Rucka,

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-72868111334996317922011-06-11T07:10:00.004-07:002011-06-11T12:49:38.565-07:00

“AFTER YOUR EXPLOITS LAST NIGHT, YOU MUST BE TIRED.” The latest entry in Sfar and Trondheim’s sardonic funny animal fantasy series, Dungeon: Monstres (subtitled: Night of the Ladykiller) puts the focus on two more of the French comic’s secondary characters. The first, title story “Night,” focuses on young Horus, the vulture sorcerer, while he is still a student. Possessed at night by an unknown,

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-89888743802674615702011-06-05T07:33:00.006-07:002011-06-05T07:47:18.846-07:00

“IN MUSIC, COUNTRY DOESN’T MATTER.” With the spring announcement that mainstay American manga publisher Tokyopop was closing up shop in the states, the wisdom of cracking open the first volume of a recently launched T’pop series is slim at best. Yet Koge-Donbo’s Pavane for a Dead Girl is such a strange misfire that I can’t help wanting to look at it more closely. “What were they thinking?” the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-16235900051035044842011-06-04T09:49:00.003-07:002011-06-04T09:51:25.987-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: A weekend photo of Boo Cat:THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-60408694012057554372011-05-30T15:17:00.004-07:002011-05-30T22:31:51.610-07:00

“IF I UNDERSTOOD, THEN I COULD UNDERSTAND.” With a moniker like Hot Club de Paris, the uninitiated listener might understandably expect something on the nature of Django Reinhardt to come slinking out of the speakers. But this trio of Liverpudlian alt poppers are going for a different sound altogether: art-pop with tinges of XTC and Blur, a guitarist who recalls a less sinuous Tom Verlaine in

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-91402805925974043162011-05-29T11:20:00.003-07:002011-05-29T15:16:27.207-07:00

“CRAZY . . .THAT’S WHAT HE IS!” A hard-edged British war comic developed by the co-creator of Judge Dredd, “Darkie’s Mob” ran in the pages of the black-and-white comics mag Battle Picture Weekly from 1976 – 77. Set in Burma, 1942, the strips depicted the wartime adventures of a battered group of soldiers stranded behind enemy lines in the jungle. Their commanding officer dead and their numbers

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-64808087157626698862011-05-25T05:52:00.008-07:002011-05-25T06:42:11.522-07:00

“THE MORE I’M WITH YOU, THE LONELIER I FEEL.” When I finished the opening story in Hiro Madarame’s mature readers manga, Scarlet, I’ve got to admit my first response was to re-read the back of the book. Billed as “romance/comedy,” the yaoi manga opens on a decidedly un-comic note: a scene in which a love struck student lies bleeding from a box cutter wielded by the boy he loves. This is comedy?

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-10551597401231860302011-05-21T07:52:00.008-07:002011-05-21T08:11:04.162-07:00

“ALMOST TIME FOR MY PRE-LUNCH SNACK.” The first in a new series of all-aged graphic novel adaptations of the current French-produced Cartoon Network series, Garfield & Co: Fish to Fry (Papercutz) features three comic retellings of cartoons utilizing screen captures from the original computer generated animated art. The results proved decidedly mixed for this reader, though young viewers who

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-51236165024971798112011-05-15T07:59:00.007-07:002011-05-15T21:59:44.283-07:00

JUST A WANDERING ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH: Heading into Tucson, the night of their May 11 concert, I couldn’t help remembering the episode of The Simpsons where the Moody Blues made a guest appearance. In it, cartoon versions of the then-four band members chastised Homer and Ned Flanders for misbehaving in Las Vegas. This night, my wife and I were going to see the group at the AVA Amphitheater

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-11503781290102365282011-05-10T07:11:00.004-07:002011-05-21T07:52:21.065-07:00

“SING FOR ME; I’M SOLD/I’LL HANG ON EVERY NOTE.” It takes a certain amount of presumptuousness to name your band something like The Grownup Noise, but Bostonians Paul Hansen (guitar, keybs, vocals) and Paul Sankowski (bass, vocals) prove up to the presumption on their self-released This Time with Feeling. Channeling a lo-fi alty pop-rock vibe that makes you think of what the Go-Betweens might’ve

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-20955769365113979842011-05-05T07:02:00.001-07:002011-05-05T07:03:49.064-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VID: It's Alice; he's getting inducted into the Hall of Fame this year - so what better reason to put up one of his performances?

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-2336486792036439992011-05-04T07:38:00.004-07:002011-05-04T18:19:24.294-07:00

BLUE LIGHT SPECIALS, DAEMONS AND CRAZED MESSIAHS: Re-reading my review of Action Comics #900 after it was recently posted, I found myself looking over at my spare little review pile and three Radical Comics mini-series. Not a one of these’ll ever come close to reaching that daunting number, I thought, which is as it’s meant to be. Where big comics companies look to promoting properties that

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-89118904646956390912011-04-29T07:35:00.006-07:002011-04-29T17:56:13.644-07:00

“THE GREATEST SICK JOKE EVER ON THE UNIVERSE.” Let’s just acknowledge the significance of the occasion. Action Comics -- the book that introduced Superman and thus helped push comic books from a cheaply produced delivery system for reprint newspaper strips into something more unique -- has reached its 900th issue. To commemorate the occasion, DC has released the ish as a “96-page spectacular,”

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-52760772894769700572011-04-23T10:19:00.004-07:002011-04-23T10:23:10.134-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: I know, it's been a few weeks since I posted one of these. But instead of me working up a buncha life-gets-in-the-way excuses, let's just sit and enjoy this simple relaxed shot of Kyan Pup, hmm-kay?THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-83556557401566964392011-04-22T06:58:00.004-07:002011-04-23T07:58:02.797-07:00

START ME UP, BABY, AND I’LL NEVER STOP: Nowadays, if you spy some kid boredom doodling in class, chances are the images they’re scratching on their lined notebook paper will be manga/anime influenced. None-too-surprisingly, many manga publishers have strived to tap into this potentially creative market by putting out manuals on how to create manga. Twenty-five years ago, the emphasis was on How

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-80190758482028705192011-04-19T17:50:00.010-07:002011-04-19T20:44:39.976-07:00

“IT’S THE GENIUS OF EVERY GREAT PAINTER TO GIVE SHAPE TO THE INVISIBLE!” The third entry in a series of graphic novels centered on the Louvre, Jean-Claude Carrier and Bernar Yslair’s The Sky over the Louvre (NBM) looks to the art museum in its earliest post-Revolution days -- when the palace and art collection that had previously been the property of royalty were transformed into public property.

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-22989023696963177712011-04-16T23:59:00.004-07:002011-04-17T11:43:53.057-07:00

“I THOUGHT FOR A MOMENT SHE WAS GOING TO THROW THE BOOK.” Though primarily known for his Perry Mason novels, prolific crime writer Erle Stanley Gardner also had another mystery series running many years. Written under the not-so-hidden pseudonym of A.A. Fair, the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool books were a private eye series told from the point of male detective Lam, who’s like a more compact version

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-91483492879928792862011-04-13T06:36:00.010-07:002011-05-03T17:34:04.477-07:00

“MEDDLER, WE HAVE A LAW HERE SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM WOMAN’S WHIM!” The 20th volume in editor Tom Pomplun’s series of “Graphic Classics” collections, Western Classics (Eureka Productions) boasts the appearance of two long-established comics names. Al Feldstein, known for his years as the artist/writer/editor for EC and editorship of Mad magazine, is represented by a lovely color illo

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-14298890955218570222011-04-07T07:11:00.004-07:002011-04-07T20:27:22.271-07:00

MID-WEEK MUSIC V-V-VIDEO: Reading that the band has re-formed, I bet ya I'm not the only one pulling out old Stone Roses material today:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-43611488991531086122011-04-07T06:41:00.001-07:002011-04-07T20:17:20.425-07:00

“AFTER THE DELINQUENT LIFE I’VE LED, I FELT I COULD DO ANYTHING.” On the cover of the first volume, Mafuyu Kurosaki looks like your typical high-spirited shojo heroine -- all big smiles in her school girl outfit. But the lead of Izumi Tsubaki’s Oresama Teacher (Viz/Shojo Beat) has a somewhat darker edge to her. The former head of a “straight-up delinquent” gang, she’s been expelled and

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-34612104220131334762011-04-02T07:21:00.005-07:002011-04-02T14:32:22.906-07:00

BONDNIBUS: “Based on the novels that inspired the movies,” the cover states -- which is a bit of a stretch since only four of the seven stories could reasonably be called novels. But I was intrigued by the second volume of Titan Books’ collection of James Bond comic strips since the set opens on one of my favorite 007 flicks, the much debated On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Titan Books must

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-71958942215145388552011-03-27T10:03:00.010-07:002011-03-27T17:21:30.364-07:00

“NEED. . . THAT’S A BIGGER WORD THAN LOVE.” Released As a part of its Eclipse series, a line of budget-minded DVD/Blu-Ray Criterion Collection sets devoted to bringing obscure movie greats to cinephiles’ attention, Basil Dearden’s London Underground is a fascinating four-film collection showing both the city and the British film industry in a major moment of transition. Originally released from

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-48892050718275803022011-03-23T06:54:00.001-07:002011-03-23T06:55:44.567-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VIDEO: Been playing the New Pornographers a lot this week. Here's one of my faves:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-39873923242320651592011-03-20T09:24:00.004-07:002011-03-20T12:22:00.491-07:00

“PARASITES OF THE NIGHT, DRESSED TO THE 9” A compact collection of poems, dramatic monologues and vignettes, Vanessa Libertad Garcia’s The Voting Booth After Dark follows a sexually diverse group of So Cal Latino club hoppers through the 2008 elections. None too surprisingly, the voyage can be a dark one. Voting Booth’s characters wrestle with substance and sexual addictions, with late-night

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-1410479323682605232011-03-18T21:23:00.002-07:002011-03-18T22:03:00.421-07:00

“EVERYTHING IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS.” A reinvigorated comic book series that first saw a brief run in the nineties, John Rozum’s Xombi (DC) tells the story of Korean-American David Kim, a victim of science/magic gone too far who has become a sort of “immortal weirdness magnet” in a world gone supernaturally haywire -- where coins deliver prophecies and silent movie vamps escape from the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-20563879071491202602011-03-13T15:40:00.005-07:002011-03-13T22:12:23.545-07:00

“NO, NOT SHAME! YES! TOTALLY OCD!” Between this new series and Tachibana Higuchi’s Portrait of M & N, the neophyte manga explorer might start wondering whether today’s shojo romancers have begun looking to the DSM for story ideas. Like the masochist and narcissist leads in M & N, the hero of Touya Tobina’s teen-rated comedy Clean-Freak: Fully Equipped (Tokyopop) is definitely diagnosable. An

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-26398761783829697682011-03-09T05:46:00.005-07:002011-03-09T22:28:28.787-07:00

“THERE’S NOTHING MORE PATHETIC THAN GROWN-UPS.” The second collection in Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’ continuing horror fantasy series, Locke & Key: Head Games (IDW) follows the three Locke children after the events in volume one. In this six-issue mini-series, the well-dwelling creature that has some sort of connection to the Locke family has joined the two older Locke kids on campus.

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-7788815425252732482011-03-04T07:22:00.003-07:002011-03-04T12:25:40.389-07:00

“THANK GOD WE LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.” Back in the eighties, when this writer was living in the Illinois heartland, I was part of a group of new music lovers who used to regularly drive a van up north to Chicago or Schaumburg to see then up-and-comers like the B-52’s or Devo. It was a two-hour plus drive, and when our blurry-eyed selves got out of the clubs, we typically had to stop on the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-23111216591409464392011-03-02T06:58:00.008-07:002011-03-02T17:42:54.976-07:00

“JOHNNY RED STRIKES LIKE THE WIND OF THE STEPPES!” A gritty, if at root implausible, war comic from the British comic mag Battle Picture Weekly, Tom (“Roy of the Rovers”) Tully and Joe Colquhoun’s “Johnny Red” tells the tale of a Liverpool lad who winds up flying against the Nazis on the Russian front. Discharged from the RAF for angrily hitting a classist commanding officer, the scrappy Brit

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-57030743867682016062011-02-26T13:46:00.003-07:002011-02-26T13:48:26.343-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: Xander Cat checks out the Sunday supplements, perhaps looking for a Temptations coupon:THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-51016779154201461142011-02-26T09:29:00.005-07:002011-02-26T11:01:51.619-07:00

“I’LL SHOW YOU SOME YOKAI MAGIC.” The newest entry in Shonen Jump’s boyish fantasy line, Hiroshi Shiibashi’s Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (Viz Media) has an opening nearly as ungainly as its title. Centered on Rikuo Nura, who we first meet as a third grader, the series charts the early adventures of a lad who is one quarter demon as he tries to straddle the human and yokai world.Raised by his

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-27248067405904292462011-02-23T06:32:00.006-07:002011-02-23T06:51:06.052-07:00

“YOU COME UP WITH THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS IDEAS.” Three volumes in and Eiki Eiki’s romantic political comedy Millennium Prime Minister (DMP) has significantly shifted its story focus. The first volume, you may recall, concentrated on the relationship between 25-year-old Japanese p.m. Kanato and 16-year-old schoolgirl Minori. In the third, it takes half the book before the latter even makes an

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-66253893155444572522011-02-21T08:26:00.004-07:002011-02-21T11:35:14.618-07:00

“WHY STAY HUMAN WHEN YOU CAN BE LIKE ME?” “Based on the Best-Selling Video Game Franchise,” DC’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution has one aesthetic advantage over its recently initiated DC Universe Online Legends comic in that it doesn’t fool around with characters established in the pre-game era. Set in 2027, the game spin-off posits a future where biotechnology has progressed to the point where “augs

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-53964066704569474632011-02-19T07:51:00.008-07:002011-02-19T08:14:45.820-07:00

“YOU’RE A REAL SPECIMEN, GINJI ISHIKAWA.” Ginji Ishikawa, the teenaged hero of Yu Aikawa’s horror fantasy Butterfly (Tokyopop), is a lad with issues: waking every morning to the ghostly sight of his suicide brother dangling before him, Ginji aggressively denies the seeming evidence of his own eyes. He’s actively antagonistic toward the very idea of the supernatural -- and snarky among those

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-73046728364453173392011-02-16T06:43:00.001-07:002011-02-16T06:45:03.518-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VID: Yes, I know Target overplayed this song during the Xmas season, but I still like this Vampire Weekend tune:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-74950711184494155572011-02-12T10:57:00.009-07:002011-02-12T14:24:50.981-07:00

“I MAY BE RUTHLESS, BUT I AM NOT CRAZY.” “Inspired by the Highly Anticipated Game!” the cover to the first issue trumpets, which could be considered a recommendation or a warning depending on your inclinations. Me, I’m more than a little wary of comics where the plot mechanics are dictated by the demands of the game instead of, you know, character, but I still retained some curiosity about the

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-73298724204252661282011-02-10T06:15:00.001-07:002011-02-10T06:17:02.279-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VIDEO: Here's a video from the Hot Club de Paris, who do not sound like you'd expect 'em to based on their name:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-65512201811164178692011-02-09T06:48:00.003-07:002011-02-09T07:17:41.944-07:00

“YOU KNOW THAT WORD, ‘DODGY’?” Scripted by the editor of the alternative manga collection, Axe, Sean Michael Wilson and Chie Kusuwada’s The Story of Lee (NBM/ComicsLit) is a somewhat familiar tale of young love in a world of a generational/cultural divide. Set in modern Hong Kong, the manga series follows Lee Chen, a young girl with dreams of going to England and becoming a writer, and Matt

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-65344322509223946602011-02-06T09:19:00.005-07:002011-02-06T16:00:56.716-07:00

“THAT’S THE BRAVERY I WAS TALKING ABOUT!” The first of a proposed series of collections culling the highlights from the long-running story magazine, Adventure, Black Dog Books’ The Best of Adventure, Volume One, 1910-1912 is a meaty set of action yarns from the early twentieth century. For lovers of genre writing and the output of the early American fiction pulps, the first volume contains

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-70128989502767284342011-02-04T06:48:00.001-07:002011-02-04T22:28:31.664-07:00

”I ENJOY THE DRAMA OF LOVE AND HATE FROM A SAFE VANTAGE POINT.” Once in every chapter of Ririko Tsujita’s comic manga The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko (Tokyopop) our title heroine makes the following declaration about herself: “I am the only completely objective observer in this story.” That arrogant statement is the series’ central joke, of course. The self-styled middle school social

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-85162108538679933742011-02-04T06:46:00.002-07:002011-02-04T06:48:17.554-07:00

BACK This writer was pretty damn well knocked out by sickness last weekend that kept me from mustering together the energy to sit at the computer long enough to type in a handwritten review for days. I'm back now, though.

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-87222564573052957932011-01-27T19:04:00.009-07:002011-01-27T22:26:31.272-07:00

“THE QUALITY OF WILL’S MERCY IS NOT STRAINED.” A literate mash-up of graphic novel fantasizing with the works of the Bard of Avon, Kill Shakespeare (IDW) owes much to Fables and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In all three works, familiar literary characters are flung together in a shared universe (Gentlemen, for instance, taking figures from Victorian entertainments and teaming them),

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-6993335965089476372011-01-26T06:46:00.001-07:002011-01-26T06:48:26.981-07:00

MIDWEEK MUSIC VIDEO: Thinking of bands I like and haven't played recently, I started jonesing for these grrls, so here's a clip from the Donnas:

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-42517017135295752432011-01-24T07:18:00.003-07:002011-07-05T09:26:21.391-07:00

“SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BREAK THE LAW TO GET JUSTICE.” Taking a cast of fabled Wild West heroes and anti-heroes and depositing ‘em into a near future Nevada, Radical Comics’ five-ish “mature readers” mini-series Earp: Saints for Sinners is an agreeably foul-mouthed actioner set in an all-too-plausible Depression Era where Las Vegas is “the only boom town left” in America and the world has

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-12922769879497201062011-01-22T05:44:00.005-07:002011-02-26T13:47:49.065-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: A shot of Boomer Cat and Kyan Pup infringing on some guy's weekend nap: THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-77268800141780636812011-01-19T06:59:00.005-07:002011-01-19T18:11:24.684-07:00

“STAY AWAY FROM THE OCEAN.” It’s a sign of the Disney-ification of our culture that when most of us think of mermaids, the first image we conjure up is of big-eyed fish-tailed princesses. Yet in Yuna (Chibi Vampire) Kagesaki’s new fantasy series AiON these denizens of the deep prove to be tougher than the romantically yearning underwater ingénues of Hans Christian Anderson fame. Instead, they’

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-33023081704820722832011-01-17T17:21:00.002-07:002011-01-17T18:30:09.984-07:00

LONG WEEKEND PET PIC: A shot of Kyan Pup and Xander Cat snoozin' on the living room couch:THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-79836221352628816642011-01-17T12:42:00.006-07:002011-01-17T16:25:05.157-07:00

“AS QUICKLY AS THESE MOMENTS OF CLARITY COME . . .THEY CAN GO.” A collection of three intertwining graphic novels set in a rural Canadian county, Jeff Lemire’s The Complete Essex County (Top Shelf) is a meaty 512-page slab of graphic novel lit that can stand along such models of written story prose as Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio. Elegantly moody and distinctly honed in its

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-6956597488687583802011-01-13T22:15:00.004-07:002011-01-14T05:54:30.044-07:00

“I THEN DECIDED TO DEVOTE MY LIFE TO MECHANICS AS A METAPHOR FOR FEELINGS OF LOVE.” A shaggy dog graphic novel about love and loss, Nicholas De Grécy’s Salvatore: Transports of Love (NBM) is an inventively rambling story about a lovelorn mechanic dog’s efforts to build the means that will get him across the ocean to his long-lost lover and the misadventures of a myopic mama sow who gives birth to

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-77613697907310207072011-01-09T08:42:00.002-07:002011-01-09T08:44:34.791-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: A cold Winter, with lots of opps to take pics of snoozing cats -- so here's another one of Boo Cat.THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-82985472834380998972011-01-07T07:11:00.008-07:002011-01-07T18:33:11.435-07:00

“GEE, HOW I LOVE THIS KID.” For most of us who grew up with it, Chic Young’s “Blondie” stands as an example of the unwavering comic strip institution: repetitious riffs on American idle class home and work life centered on the hapless family man and his lithe-limbed homemaker wife. But as Blondie: The Courtship and Wedding (IDW/Library of American Comics) illuminates, the eighty-year-old

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-45955318307178600572011-01-02T13:50:00.007-07:002011-01-02T15:34:56.545-07:00

“WHAT CAN A SHABBY GIRL LIKE YOU DO?” A teen-rated fantasy romance, Juliette Suzuki’s Kamisama Kiss (Viz/Shojo Beat) opens on a fairly bleak note: heroine Nanami Momozono, a second year high school student, has been abandoned by her degenerate gambler father and evicted from the shabby apartment she used to call her home. Left to fend for herself in a city park, she happens upon a seemingly

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-70781116663134991852011-01-01T07:02:00.007-07:002011-01-01T15:21:28.877-07:00

“THAT’S WHEN I LEAP FROM THE CASKET, SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS!” Midway into Bleu’s fourth disc, the mundanely titled Four (The Major Label), as I listened to the sweetly poppy “When the Shit Hits the Fan,” I found myself thinking back to the first time I heard Nilsson Shmilsson and “The Moonbeam Song.” I remembered my double-take back in the early seventies when the song’s lyrics first

Billnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3366534.post-56473726954299805262010-12-31T21:56:00.003-07:002010-12-31T21:59:25.800-07:00

WEEKEND PET PIC: Dusty venturing out into the backyard during the chilly S.E. AZ. winter. (Note Kyan Pup in the bckgnd.)THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark."

Billnoreply@blogger.com0