Colleen Coover's Power Focus

Another Colleen Coover Alert!

According to her LiveJournal, Colleen will be illustrating a series of 2-page back-ups for the upcoming Power Pack: Day One mini under the umbrella title "Power Focus." In these pieces written by Fred Van Lente (of Action Philosophers fame) the Power Pack kids take turns explaining the laws of physics. Fun!

The Most Popular Graphic Novel in All the Land

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Yes, I know there's some dispute over whether or not Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a graphic novel; but here's a prominent window display of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules at Borders store #1 here in Ann Arbor.

BTW, I plan on visiting the new Borders Concept Store sometime next week, and hopefully will have pictures of their Graphic Novel Island.

My Original Art

I don't own a lot of original comic art, but I do own four pieces of original art from Superman by Curt Swan. They've been matted and framed and now hang on the wall in my back hallway. This makes scanning them troublesome, but I did recently pull out the digital camera:


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Here the four pieces hang side-by-side on the wall.



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Superman vs. Chemo from Superman #382, inked by Dave Hunt.


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Lana Lang confronts Jimmy Olsen and new cub reporter Justin Moore in Superman #383, inked by Dave Hunt.



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Jimmy Olsen discovers a villain at a radio telescope in Superman #378, inked by Dave Hunt.



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Lois Lane infiltrates the villains' lair. Can she uncover their plot to use a deadly Hydrogen Bomb?! From Superman #238, inked by Murphy Anderson.

No more anonymous comments

While in theory I believe in allowing anonymous comments on this blog, in practice the comment spammers have forced me to deny that option. From now on you'll need a Google/Blogger ID or an OpenID to make comments. Sorry folks!

Bedtime Reading

Graphic novels about paleontology make for great bedtime reading!

Quick Manga Reviews

Voices of Love
by Kanae Hazuki
Luv Luv Press, $10.95

Voices of Love is a collection of five short stories in the redikomi--or 'ladies comics'--genre, which are basically romance stories with a bit of R-rated sex thrown in. Based on the stories presented here, women's sexual fantasies seem to revolve around being rescued from an abusive relationship by a white knight that the protagonist has secretly pined after, and then having hot sex. Not being the target audience for this sort of thing I cannot say how well the stories achieve their aim; but the art is attractive and the stories are brief but complete.

Rating: 2.5 (of 5)




Voiceful
by nawako
Seven Seas, $11.99

Despite having originally appeared in a yuri magazine and being published under Seven Seas' Strawberry imprint, the stories in Voiceful aren't really yuri (a point that the creator acknowledges in the afterward). Instead of lesbian relationships, the stories herein depict close emotional relationships that form between young women. (Presumably one could choose to read a little more into the stories than actually appears on the page.) The title story relates the tale of a friendship that forms between an Internet pop singer and one of her reclusive fans, with their relationship serving to bring each out of their respective shells. The last of the three stories also deals with music, as a student teacher and one of her students find themselves locked together overnight in their school's music room. Creator nawako's art style is standard shojo, but she seems to bring a little extra to the proceedings, with a good sense of flow and pacing. Again I'm not the target audience here, but I found myself enjoying these stories that were charming with a tint of sadness.

Rating: 3 (of 5)

Monkey Covers

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

It's Monsieur Mallah & the Brain vs. Gorilla Grodd on the cover of this week's: Salvation Run #4, drawn by Sean Chen & Walden Wong.

(Standard disclaimer about evil super-villain gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

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