Yet Another Music Moment

(I've pretty much given up on Yet Another Media Blog, as I was hardly ever updating it and no one was reading it when I was. So you'll all have to put up with me rambling on about music and tv and movies and books and whatnot from time to time over here on YACB.)

Who knew that listening to NPR could be so expensive? After hearing an All Things Considered story on singer Jenny Lewis, I hopped on over to iTunes and ended up not only purchasing her new album Rabbit Fur Coat, but also the album More Adventurous by her regular band Rilo Kelly. (Darn iTunes makes buying new music too easy!) Both are rather good, so hop on over and give a listen when you get a chance.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

Well, it's my birthday too, yeah!

Other people who share our birthday (courtesy of WikiPedia):

Pope Paul II (1417)
W.E.B. DuBois (1868)
Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (1932)
Peter Fonda (1940)
Howard Jones (1955)
Dakota Fanning (1994)

(Update: See the Wikipedia article on the birthday paradox.)

(modified cover to The New Adventures of Superboy #1 by Kurt Schaffenberger & Dick Giordano, courtesy of the GCD. Clark Kent's actual birthday is February 29, but this is close enough!)

Review: War of the Worlds: Second Wave #1

War of the Worlds: Second Wave #1
by Michael Alan Nelson & Chee
Boom! Studios, $2.99

The basic story of War of the Worlds is probably familiar to just about everyone, if not through H. G. Wells' original novel than via one of he many other media adaptations: Martians invade Earth and wreck destruction upon humanity until finally they are wiped out in a rather anticlimactic fasion via common Earth germs.

This first issue of this new Boom! Studios series retells the basic WotW story, set in modern day middle America, from the perspective of Miles, a self-professoed unheroic suburban everyman who just wants to survive. In the process Miles loses his wife to the Martian's onslaught, and he vows revenge. He may get his chance, as the last page of the comic reveals (and I don't think I'm spoiling anything here, as it is the main premise of the series) that a week later the Martians return.

Therein lies the main problem with this first issue: it's all set-up. Worse, it's set-up that we basially already know. The interesting story, the *real* story, is what happens during the Second Wave, and how Miles will respond. While the set-up is important, it probably should have been condensed way down to four pages or so, and perhaps moved into a flashback.

As for the art, the uni-named Chee has solid storytelling abilities, and during the action scenes brings a good level of tension to the story. There's room for improvement with the figurework, especially in the case of Miles' wife Gina, drawn in many panels looking more like an 11-year-old girl than a twenty-something woman (which caused this reader at least a bit of confusion in the opening).

On the whole, War of the Worlds: Second Wave is off to a somewhat flawed but promising start. It's hard to judge, given that the real story doesn't kick off until the last page. But I'm interested enough to want to see where the story goes from here, so I'm looking forward to the real story kicking off in the second issue.

Rating: 3 (out of 5)

A review copy of this comic was provided by the publisher.

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! If it's February, it must be the start of awards season (which goes for what, six months?) Nominees have been announced for the Shuster Awards (Canadian creators), the Glyph Awards (Achievement in black comics), and the ISPie Awards (Indy & Small Press).

ITEM! This week, the Detroit Free Press is running a survey asking readers which comics in their comics section should stay and which should go. Vote now and send Mallard Fillmore to the early grave it deserves!

ITEM! Scholastic are apparently considering a line of manga targeted at elementary kids. (Follow along with the discussion for inersting responses about kids & comics in libraries.)

ITEM! Newsarama have up preview pages for 3 of the DC OYL comics: Aquaman, Catwoman, and Hawkgirl. Spoilers ahoy, especially for Catwoman. Tom Spurgeon has some interesting comments regarding DCs latest creative direction/marketing ploy. Success will hang, I think, on not just the quality of the comics, but whether or not sales increase enough to justify the costs of the high-profile creative teams involved in many of the titles. If not, look for second- and third-tier creators coming on-board in 2007.

ITEM! We're suffering under a massive denial-of-service attack on campus today, as apparently are many other institutions, which is making Web surfing slow to a crawl sporadically. Kind of makes my 100Mbs connection kind of worthless right now...

New This Week: February 22, 2006

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:


The Pick of the Week is Mouse Guard #1 from Archaia Studio Press. Yes, its story of mice in a fantasy-like world is somewhat derivative of Redwall, but the art is charmingly realistic and well-done. It's a funny shape though (square) so don't miss it.


In other comics:

Aardvark-Vanaheim & Win-Mill have another installment of comics criticism with Following Cerebus #7.

Alias have collected editions of both Lions, Tigers & Bears and Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker.

Antarctic have the last issue of Oz: The Maga (#8), although I think there's also an epilogue on the way.

Boom! Studios have Zombie Tales: Death Valley #2.

Dark Horse have a new issue of Usagi Yojimbo (#91).

DC have the earliest adventures of the Man of Steel in Superman Chronicles, vol. 1; debut issues of John Ridley's American Way and Jones & Sears' Warlord revival; and new issues of Catwoman (#52), JLA Classified (#17), Legion of Super-Heroes (#15), Lucifer (#71); and the final issue of Wonder Woman (#226).

Fantagraphics have a new issue of Luba's Comics and Stories (#7).

Marvel have the return of Whedon & Cassiday's Astonishing X-Men (#13); the final issue of Black Widow 2 (#6); and new issues of Captain America (#15), Book of Lost Souls (#5), Kabuki (#6), Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (#3), Supreme Power: Hyperion (#4), and Ultimate Spider-Man (#90).

TokyoPop have a ton of books, including volume 3 of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad.


That about does it. Looks like DC wasn't able to ship an issue of Infinite Crisis during February--that's really going to hurt their dollar share...

New Library Comics: Week of February 13, 2006

Here are the comics we got in for our library collection last week:


Atangan, Patrick. The silk tapestry and other Chinese folktales /New York : NBM Pub., c2004.

Atangan, Patrick. The yellow jar : two tales from Japanese tradition /New York : NBM Pub., [2002]-

Atangan, Patrick. Tree of love /New York : Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine Pub., 2005.

Birbal the clever /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1997.

Dasharatha /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Dead herring comics /Tel Aviv, Israel : Actus Independent Comics, [2004]

Jataka tales : bird stories /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1997.

Kaulfersch, Ron. Van Von Hunter /Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2005. v. 1

Krishna /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Kurtzman, Harvey. Playboy's Little Annie Fanny /Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 2000-

Mansukhani, G. S. Guru Nanak /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

McCay, Winsor. Little Nemo in Slumberland /Palo Alto, CA : Sunday Press, c2005.

Noisy outlaws, unfriendly blobs, and some other things that aren't as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cellphones, creatures from the sky, parents who disappear in Peru, a man named Lars Farf, and one other story we couldn't quite finish so maybe you could help us out /San Francisco : McSweeney's, c2005.

Pekar, Harvey. The quitter /New York : DC Comics, c2005.

Sala, Richard. Mad night /Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, 2005.

Tatsumi, Yoshihiro, 1935- The Push Man, and other stories /Montreal : Drawn & Quarterly ; New York, NY : Distributed in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2005.

The hidden treasure : a Jataka tale /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! "I'm always sorry to have to rush to the defense of idiots." Joe Sacco, along with Art Speigelman, discusses the Danish cartoon controversy on The Nation.

ITEM! Linkology: How the Most-Linked-To Blogs Relate from New York Magazine. And not a single comics blog among them.

ITEM! Infuze magazine has the entire first issue of David: Shepherd's Song available online (free registration required). I previously reviewed this comic favorably.

ITEM! Over on Newsarama, Andy Diggle interviews David Lloyd about the V for Vendetta movie (Lloyd's take is quite different from Alan Moore's...) and his upcoming graphic novel, Kickback (with sample pages!)

ITEM! On this weekend's Speaking of Faith, host Krista Tippett speaks in-depth with American Muslim scholar Vincent Cornell about the Danish Cartoon Controversy. It's very interesting, but missing from the conversation is any mention of the inflamatory fake cartoons.