New This Week: October 3, 2007

What looks good at the comic shop this week?


Top of the list is local creator Jane Irwin's Vögelein: Old Ghosts; I'm presuming that this modern faerie story will be as charming as the first Vögelein.

Marvel have the first issue of Jonathan Lethem & Farel Dalrymple's Omega the Unknown, a reimagining (I believe) of Steve Gerber's classic character.

Also from Marvel is the latest Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane digest; at only $8 there's no excuse for not picking the collection of this charming series. (Well, expect for the fact that there seems to be no mention of this collection on Marvel's Website...)

The second issue in BKV's Faith story arrives in Buffy #7 from Dark Horse.

Dark Horse also have the second volume of Adam Warren's Empowered; the first volume straddled the line between parody & exploitation, and I expect this one will do likewise.

Viz have the first volume of their new edition of Uzumaki, Junji Ito's fantastic horror manga. (There's tons of other manga from Viz, TokyoPop, and Del Rey too).


Enjoy your new comics, whatever you end up getting!

Read Irresponsibly

To celebrate Banned Books Week, the staff here at the library has put together a flickr photo set showcasing various banned and challenged books. My choice, of course, was the now-infamous Eightball #22.

Check out the rest of the pictures, including more-famous-than-me Jim Ottaviani reading Fun Home and Watchmen.

(Also: Don't miss Unshelved this week, whose "Read Irresponsibly" theme gives this post its title.)

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

The cover of 1958's Marmaduke Monk #1 with the titular monkey about to get a bang!

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

"Girls in Mini Skirts Kicking People"

This weekend's On the Media from NPR covers manga and "manga diplomacy," as Brooke Gladstone talks to Roland Kelts (author of Japanamerica):

Amazon Top 25

Just for kicks on a Friday, here's the current Amazon Top 25 Comics & Graphic Novels:

1. The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories
2. Watchmen
3. 52, Vol. 3
4. Sopratos, The: A Pearls Before Swine Collection
5. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
7. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
8. I'm Ready for My Movie Contract: A Get Fuzzy Collection
9. Marvel Zombies/Army Of Darkness HC
10. Dark Hunger
11. The Complete Peanuts 1963-1966 Box Set
12. Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 18: Ultimate Knights
13. The Halo Graphic Novel
14. Process Recess 2: Portfolio
15. Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. 1
16. 300
17. Hellboy Volume 7: The Troll Witch and Other Stories
18. Cubes and Punishment: A Dilbert Book
19. The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966
20. Stephen King's Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born
21. And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyest: A FoxTrot Collection
22. Naruto, Volume 19
23. Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel
24. The Death and Return of Superman Omnibus
25. Arrival


(All of our previous caveats apply)

Chris Butcher Talks Process

While I'm by no means a huge Belle & Sebastian fan, I quite enjoyed reading Chris Butcher's deconstruction of how he created his story for the anthology Put The Book Back On The Shelf. I'm a structure freak, so I especially appreciated how Butcher used color as a structural element in his story.

Ladies' Bookplate

Found this bookplate in the Google scan of The Pilgrims of the Rhine by Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton Lytton.