Whats everyone reading?

[SmallBlueThing]

DOCTOR WHO: THE DALEK PROJECT

120 page hardback original graphic novel by justin richards and some bloke called martin carrott or something. A delayed follow-up to 'the only good dalek' from TWO YEARS AGO, that some of us have been waiting an awfully long time for. Two years in fact. Two years- we are not getting younger, you know.

Anyway, this looks as fantastic as the last one, which is one of my favourite 'nu who' things ever and of which ive bought four copies- one for me, one each for my boys, and one for one of their friends' birthday present. Hope this one is as good- it features the first world war, so already its full of win. If only mr carrott or whatever his name is would tell us whether there will be a third.

And- tharg, if you're listening- original graphic novels in this format for the xmas market (series one; dredd, slaine, stront) would go down a treat. Thanks!

SBT

[hoops]

Biomega #1 by Tsutomu Nihei...
very cool

[DeFuzzed]

Killing Floor, Lee Child, 1997 - (Jack Reacher, Book One)

I wanted to read the Jack Reacher novels before Tom Cruise's movie comes out, and it was a fast, easy read. First person, which I normally don't like, and it took a few pages before the way he talked/thought in short, abrupt sentences, ceased to be an annoyance and became accepted as just the way Jack was.

Interesting feel to it, because although obviously set in modern times, it felt noir, fedora and broads just itching to be on the page - but not in a fake, I'm-being-radical-and-making-it-noir way. Natural noir *g* - read it and tell me what I mean.

Anyway, from this first book you get a description of Jack - 6'5, thin, blond, blue eyes - so I can see why fans might have had a problem with Cruise in the role. I'm betting there would have been strong words if Dredd was played by a short/chubby/black/woman too . But on the other hand, if you get the character right and the tone of the movie, good things can come out of shaking things up that way.

Ex-military policeman who's turned wanderer since he was let go, Jack Reacher, ends up in small town America and discovers foul goings-on. Unwillingly discovers. He doesn't want to know, he just came by to satisfy his curiosity about a guitar player called Blind Blake, but instead, he gets stuck in the middle of a whole pile of ugliness.

Strong visuals in this book, action galore, well-drawn characters. Should make for a good movie, all that, but nothing really sticks out as new, original - but since that's not necessary for me to enjoy a good action movie as long as it's a good action movie, I'm completely fine with it.

[DeFuzzed]

Die Trying, Lee Child, 1998 - (Jack Reacher #2)

No more first person, which is a relief even though I got used to it in the first novel. Again, he's accidentally involved in something which turns into something much bigger. I thought his dialogue could be better, some were just right off, and the ending was a bit of an anti-climax. However, strong characters again and visuals, good fun read.

[MIKE COLLINS]

DOCTOR WHO: THE DALEK PROJECT

If only mr carrott or whatever his name is would tell us whether there will be a third.

And- tharg, if you're listening- original graphic novels in this format for the xmas market (series one; dredd, slaine, stront) would go down a treat. Thanks!

SBT

MARTIN CARROTT WRITES...
Well, if this sells well enough (and the last one is still in hardback, so fingers crossed) we could well do another!

[SmallBlueThing]

Yes! Please do another! In all seriousness, these are pieces of serious quality and i would hope will be looked upon with the same affection as sixties items such as 'the dalek book' and 'invasion from space' are today. I read the new one friday night, and the sheer joy of pages of new dalek designs was incredible. Magnificently silly, yet exactly right. And if i may so a damn site better as a story than that tv thing which caused it to be delayed by a couple of years.
Ive already had to buy a second copy for the boy, hope it sells in quantities hitherto unheard of. And please do more- this needs to be a dalek trilogy at least. And again, in all seriousness, thanks.

SBT

[Professor Bear]

Remember back when you first read Preacher and got to a bit and then went "oh no they didn't"?  Well Al Ewing's Jennifer Blood: Beautiful People is basically you being that guy again before you got jaded at the sight of yet another trench-coated ex-squaddie smoking a cigarette while shooting someone or saying the superhero comics you grew up with are actually for retards because real men who are adults are into stories where soldiers shag lots of women and then kill small armies single-handedly while bro-fisting.
I suspect Al might have turned some of the story into metacommentary about taking over an Ennis book, with the character always telling us she's going to do something else other than shoot people to death and she'll do it aaaaaany minute now, but this really does read like what you remember Garth Ennis being like, hopping between energetic, shocking and inventive with what looks like ease, and that's what I take away from this: that even when he's shoehorning in a "fuck you" to Spider-Man editor Steve Wacker's idiotic defence/dismissal of torture, Al makes this look easy.  He's just waltzed in and put his feet under the table of a pretty generic premise and seemingly spat out one of the most entertaining comics I've read in ages like it ain't nothing.
The art is where the problem lies for me - not with Kewber Baal and Eman Casallos' interior work, but Tim Bradstreet and Ale Garcia's tits-n-ass covers which really do dwell a bit too much on the sexy lady element of the premise, which I do not actually have a problem with in theory until it starts overpowering the book's image and gives entirely the wrong impression of the contents, in this case being that it's a typical bad girl comic like you look at once and then never again because if you really need to masturbate to one of those covers that badly you can just check 'em out online.  I get the impression from covers like Bradstreet's image of a lady with big boobs just sitting on the floor in her undercrackers that Dynamite haven't the first clue what they're publishing or how to brand or market it, which is a shame as it's actually the best Punisher book in years, and given that the actual Punisher is going all supervillain-hunty soon in the upcoming Marvel reboot, it seems they're missing out on a chance to capitalise on jumping-off readers.

Still: a top book.  Highly recommended.

[SuperSurfer]

Ever growing pile here of half read comics I just can't get through. The fact that I still haven't finished reading Dredd case files 1 illustrates how far behind I am.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

More H P Lovecraft , Omnibus 3 The Haunter of the Dark.

Exquisitely Cover by Tim White.

[TordelBack]

Berlin, by Jason Lutes.  I recently got hold of a copy of issue 18, prompting a re-read of the whole seriesso far.  I've been buying this since the start, which was sometime late last century, so there's been an issue-or-so a year (it was a wee bit faster earlier on), and it's easy to forget who is who in the large cast. 

Read in one go it is an awe-inspiring, moving, informative and very beautiful thing.  Starting in the late 1920s it explores every aspect of life in Berlin as the Weimar Republic starts to come apart, taking in artists, revolutionaries, street kids, students, Nazis, Communists, Jews, pacifists, veterans, industrialists, newspapermen, lesbians, factory workers, middle class couples, jaded libertines, cops, cabaret singers, prostitutes, scholars, road gangs, landladies and black Jazz combos from the States. For all this, the numerous characters have their own compelling stories that overlap and intertwine.  It's pleasingly light on historical celebrity cameos, so when they do happen they usually come as a pleasant (or unpleasant) surprise. 

Bubbling under and to an extent driving the narrative is the 'war for the streets', the escalating clashes of National Socialists and Communists through papers, demonstrations and endless violence, which shapes so much of popular opinion, and ultimately populist politics. I think the best example of its well-judged breadth is when Otto, one of the key Red faction characters, tries to deter the daughter of a victim of the police from getting involved in the Communist cause.  At this point, the end of the second arc City of Stones, our sympathies lie substantially with the Reds, poor, outclassed by the Brownshirts, targeted by the police, but a recently-injured Otto observes: "You've seen th' blokes hang around here, my 'comrades'.  Good mates, that's a truth, looking after me the way they have...  But good Communists?  Layabouts 'n thugs more like".  There are Brownshirts just trying to raise their kids, brutal Communist murderers, open-minded bourgeoisie and close-minded tramps.  All human life is here, both making up and tossed upon the tides of history.

Highly, highly recommended.  Apparently another 6 years or so will see it finished, you could wait until then but I certainly can't.     

[PreacherCain]

Berlin, by Jason Lutes.  I recently got hold of a copy of issue 18, prompting a re-read of the whole seriesso far.  I've been buying this since the start, which was sometime late last century, so there's been an issue-or-so a year (it was a wee bit faster earlier on), and it's easy to forget who is who in the large cast. 

I recently bought Books one and two of this. Not sure how much those collections cover but I'm really looking forward to reading them after that review!

[Zarjazzer]

"Fog Devils of the Cursed Earth"-yes! beat that for a title-a short story with some illos by Mike Mcmahon (for it is he) in the JD Annual 1984. Fabulous, fast paced story[spoiler] with a time machine,implosion grenades (what are they)  and a cool ending. [/spoiler]

[shaolin_monkey]

'On the Road' by Kerouac.  I tried it years and years ago, and found it dull, so only got a couple of chapters in.  This time around I'm really enjoying it.  Just chipping away, a few chapters an evening - perfect  bedtime reading before lights out.

[Judge Delboy]

Just started Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery

[DeFuzzed]

Tripwire, Lee Child, 1999 - (Jack Reacher #3)

My favourite out of the three, not least because it looks like the 'different love interest in each novel' format is going to be dispensed with. Dialogue better too.

Starting the fourth book now; I'm getting through them at a book a day - one of the few upsides to unemployment! At a point now where I'm really looking forward to the movie to see how they've adapted it for the big screen.