What I bought, read, watched, or otherwise consumed – November 2024

Yet, as one Egyptian businessman in Cairo, hearing my observations, noted: “They have been narrowly educated. And narrowly educated people cause the worst sorts of upheavals.” (Robert Kaplan, from The Ends of the Earth)

COMICS

The Bat-Man: First Knight by Dan Jurgens (writer), Mike Perkins (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Simon Bowland (letterer), and Matthew Levine (editor). $29.99, 140 pgs, DC.

This is a fairly standard Batman story, with some nice bells and whistles that make it interesting but not that great. It’s a Black Label book, but as we’ve seen, in the wake of the Bat-Penis controversy, all that means is a few swear words but no nudity and not really that much worse violence than you find in a regular Batman book. Bruce gets busy in this book, but it’s all in deep shadows so we don’t really see much (and he has sex in what appears to be a really uncomfortable chair – it’s classic “movie sex,” where people are so overcome by passion they bang in places that do not appear terribly conducive to it). That’s fine and all, but I wonder why DC even has the Black Label – surely just having a few characters saying “Fuck” wasn’t what this was supposed to be about? I guess you could argue that these stories are supposed to be more “mature,” and in this one, the threat of Nazism in America kind of hangs over things and the idea of people having to hide their sexuality is a small part of it, but, I mean, those are things that DC does in a lot of its “immature” books, too, so I don’t know what the Black Label imprint is supposed to be. Did the Bat-Dong really cast such a shadow over the line (so to speak)? I mean, really.

Anyway, Jurgens, who I’ve long said is the tapioca pudding of comics, does a standard Bat-story of bad guys creating monsters – in this case, zombies – and trying to take over the city, and the Bat-Man – complete with purple gloves ’cause it’s 1939 and that’s all anyone cares about with regard to the 1939 version of the character, not that he killed people with some regularity – is trying to stop them. It’s fine. Jim Gordon has to learn to trust him, Bruce has to learn how to be a vigilante because he’s getting his ass kicked a lot (Jurgens doesn’t go quite so far as to incapacitate him, like he should, because then there’d be no story, but he is sore a lot, so there’s that). Bats commiserates with a rabbi and protects a brothel owner who’s not quite as bad as others who would take over, a fact that becomes important later on in the story. There are crooked politicians and police, there’s a mysterious evil dude running things, and things unfold pretty much exactly as you think they would. Jurgens isn’t subtle – almost the first thing the rabbi says to Batman is all about Nazis persecuting Jews and how it’s coming to the U.S., which seems a pretty heavy thing to lay on someone you literally just met – but this isn’t supposed to be a subtle book. It’s about smashing bad guys who may or may not be Nazis, and that’s fine.

The book’s success, such as it is, rests on Perkins’s broad shoulders (I don’t know what Perkins looks like, so I don’t know if he has broad shoulders or not, but work with me, people!), and he’s up to the task. Perkins, like some other artists, “casts” people in his comics, and I recognized David Niven as one character, while it seems we go back and forth between Gregory Peck and a young, hot Robert Mitchum for Bruce, but I don’t know any others. It’s not a big deal – I don’t love it, but whatever – and it doesn’t distract, so we’re good. Perkins is a terrific artist, and I guess the fancier format of Black Label books allows his work to be even nicer, which is nice. He really does a nice job creating a 1930s vibe for Gotham, and his weird Batman, with the purple gloves and curved ears, really does look like the 1939 version. I assume that some, if not all of the backgrounds are somehow photoshopped in and traced, but that’s fine, because Perkins does a nice job integrating them, and the character work is excellent, as well. Unlike a lot of Batman books, the comic isn’t very dark – there are some dark parts, of course, but Spicer does a nice job keeping things a bit brighter than you might expect, which allows us to see the artwork better, which is never a bad thing. It’s a beautiful book, and it helps the somewhat bland story go down easier.

This is a solid Batman comic. Nothing great, but solid. Of course, I still don’t know why it’s a Black Label book, but I guess that’s above my pay grade!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Blood Squad Seven volume 1: Perilous Relaunch by Joe Casey (writer), Paul Fry (artist), Francesco Segala (colorist), and Rus Wooton (letterer). #12.99, 98 pgs, Image.

Casey writes about the “1990s nostalgia” gripping people in comics right now, and this book is attempt to tap into that and see if he can update the excesses of the 1990s for a new generation. I guess. I have no nostalgia for the 1990s, because I’m not nostalgic for things that have little to no effect on me – I’m nostalgic, I guess, for a time when I had a bit more free time and lived nearer to my friends so I could see them more often, but I’m not nostalgic for comics or any other bit of pop culture except for very brief and infrequent instances. I also recognize that as energetic as the early Image stuff could be, a whole lot of it was absolute garbage, and Casey isn’t about to make me feel otherwise. Still, this is a perfectly cromulent superhero story, as a group active in the early 1990s is brought back as a government strike force that also acts as a group of celebrities because that’s just how we do it these days. Casey doesn’t really do anything terribly original with it – this first arc is about one of the group going rogue and the rest having to hunt him down, and it’s fine – but it’s still a solid enough superhero book. Fry’s art reminds me vaguely of David Messina, who worked with Casey on The Bounce, in that it’s perfectly solid, is vaguely Adam Hughes-ish, and doesn’t do anything spectacular. There’s nothing spectacular Blood Squad Seven, but there’s nothing really wrong with it, either. I guess if you’re nostalgic for early Image comics, it will work better for you, but otherwise, it’s just a run-of-the-mill superhero book.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Cruel Universe #4 by bunches o’ folk. $4.99, 26 pgs, Oni Press.

As usual, not much to say. There’s an alien story that cribs from Superman and is sort-of a parody of presidential politics circa 2024, there’s a weird story about arrogant scientists who think they’ve discovered the secret of creation, there’s a clever story about a woman meeting alien races and feeling pretty good about it, and there’s a goofy two-page story about a dude who becomes president (lot of that going around) but who’s not what he seems. Alison Sampson, who does far too little comics work, draws the second story, which is the artistic highlight of the issue (although all the stories look nice), and it’s just your general, well-done sci-fi/horror comic that we all know and love. I enjoy these anthologies, but they’re not easy to write about. Just read ’em!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Drive Like Hell by Rich Douek (writer), Alex Cormack (artist), and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer). $19.99, 96 pgs, Dark Horse.

In a world where pop-cultural cross-pollination is such a thing, it seems like someone should jump on Drive Like Hell and make a kick-ass B-movie, as this is just a blast. Bobby Ray is a getaway driver for a group of thieves, and the car he steals for the job turns out to be … well, it’s a demon. In car form. And the Archangel Gabriel’s Magic Trumpet just happens to be in the trunk. Bobby Ray doesn’t know any of this, but when the demon who stole the Trumpet shows up at the bank and kills the thieves looking to get it back, he finds out right quick. The woman who recruited him, Dahlia, manages to escape the bank, but while they’re driving away, she gets shot in the head … yet is somehow still alive. Look, don’t question it, just roll with it! Before you can say “Burt Reynolds would have definitely starred in this movie in 1979,” Bobby Ray and Dahlia have demon hordes, cops, bikers, a shady televangelist, and Gabriel on their tail. And the mayhem continues to pile up!

This is just fun as heck, as Douek keeps chucking things into it and Bobby Ray and Dahlia keep having to figure out how to get out of it. Cormack, as usual, is excellent on the art, although, also as usual, some pages are really dark, which is annoying. Generally, though, the art is marvelous, as Cormack gets to draw all sorts of crazy, violent shit, which just adds to the fun of the book. Drive Like Hell is pure entertainment, and that’s something we could use more of in these dark times!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Epitaphs from the Abyss #5 by various people. $4.99, 27 pgs, Oni Press.

As usual, it’s difficult to really review these anthologies, but I still like to mention them. This feels like a better issue of these “EC” books that Oni has been putting out, but I don’t know – maybe I’m trapped by recency bias!!! Matt Kindt and Leomacs have the first story, which we think is about a dude who might have killed his wife, but … might not be. Kindt is very good at these kinds of crime stories (see below!), and the art is nifty. Next, Matthew Rosenberg and Kano have a clever ghost – or possibly alien? – story with a keen twist. Finally, Joanne Starer and Alexander Tefenkgi have a story about two very vain people who hook up, and things do not go as expected! As always, you might not like anthologies, and that’s cool – I dig them, and Oni and Boom! have been getting good people to work on theirs, so I’ll keep getting them!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Gilt Frame #1-3 by Matt Kindt (writer/artist), Margie Kraft Kindt (writer), and Sophia Hilmes (letterer). $29.97, 172 pgs, Dark Horse.

Matt Kindt knows how to write these kinds of stories in his sleep, so I was very keen to check this out, as I dig murder mysteries, and the weirder, the better (Kindt’s Red Handed is one of my favorite of these kinds of stories). This is a very good comic – it’s not quite as good as some of his masterpieces, but it’s still very good – and it’s a lot of fun to read. Kindt gives us an aunt-nephew combo who seem skilled at solving crimes they happen to stumble upon, and the latest one is a murder in Paris. The aunt, Meredith, has bid on some fauteuils from the time of Louis XVI (hence the name of the comic), and she needs to go to Paris (from St. Louis, where they live together as Sammy, the nephew, is an orphan) to pick them up. When she arrives, she can’t get the chairs for a reason, but she comes into contact with an antiquities dealer who might have some. Of course, there’s a murder that involves the dealer, and Meredith and Sammy become part of the investigation, as they’re suspects – or, more specifically, persons of interest – and the cop on the case needs to chat with them. They take that opportunity to hang around and try to solve the case themselves, because of course they do!

It’s a very clever story with a lot of red herrings, but I’m not going to tell you too much about it because it’s too fun to figure it out. The identity of the killer becomes fairly clear about halfway through (well, it did for me – you might get it sooner or later), but the motive and method remain a mystery, and even if you do figure it out, it’s still fun to read. The cop – Inspector Vaillant – is an interesting character, and he gathers all the principals together like any good drawing-room murder investigator and hashes things out. Meredith and Sammy have a good relationship, one that becomes deeper and more interesting as the book moves along, and the other characters – all connected to the dealer in some way – are well done, too. There are connections to the 1904 World’s Fair, because why not, and there’s a cult in Hawaii … Kindt and Kindt pack a lot into this! Kindt does his usual nice work with the art – as always, it’s a bit of an acquired taste, but he does such a nice job with people and the way they look, plus he pays so much attention to the details, so it’s a lot of fun to just mosey through the books trying to soak it all in. It’s a beautiful comic.

Kindt writes a lot of comics that he doesn’t draw, which is fine because he needs to pay the bills, but they never quite match when he’s writing and drawing, and this is an example of that. He just seems to have more fun when he’s drawing, and while this comic does have a murder in it, it’s not all doom and gloom. The characters are often not admirable, but their pettiness and rage are kind of fun. Vaillant is single-minded, but he’s crafty enough to keep everyone on their toes. Meredith and Sammy have an easy intimacy that feels like it’s been built up over years, which it has. These are real people who just happen to be inside a murder plot. Kindt does this very well, and it’s nice to see this kind of thing from him!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Ice Cream Man volume 10: Mysterious Wrecks by W. Maxwell Prince (writer), Martín Marazzo (artist), Chris O’Halloran (colorist), and Good Old Neon (letterer). $16.99, 109 pgs, Image.

The centerpiece of this collection is issues #39-40, “Decompression in a Wreck,” which Image offered as a big-ass “fancy edition” as well, because they knew it was pretty neat. Maxwell shows a car crash at the moment of impact and then weaves a story about all the people in the wreck, from the parents in the car to the kids in the back seat to the truckers in the truck that the car hits, and it’s really well done. It’s not surprising that Image digs it so much. Maxwell tells us over and over that the story is only five seconds long, but because of the idea of “decompression” in comics, he can zip back and forth through time and tell a complete story in those moments while the crash is happening (I mean, to be fair, any medium can do this, so this isn’t terribly groundbreaking, but it is very well done). As usual, though, Maxwell does good work on all the stories in the collection, and I’m still not sure how he can keep coming up with such weird and disturbing ideas, even if none of the stories in this trade are that disturbing – they’re more just weird. In the first story, two adult siblings are arguing about their brother’s things after his suicide. The brother created a cute cartoon with adorable, furry creatures, and the other half of the story is about those adorable, furry creatures fighting a war, which … goes poorly for them. It’s an interesting meditation on mortality and ethics and selfishness, with, you know, adorable furry creatures fighting a war. In the second story, a bunch of dudes who all look alike and are all named Gary live in a compound called Garyland, and some of them are beginning to think that something is hinky with the set-up. It’s a morbidly funny story with, naturally, a serious side, and Prince does a nice job balancing the two. Morazzo continues to do stellar work with the crisp, clean art, and O’Halloran’s colors are dynamic as usual, and what do you know? it’s another excellent collection of Ice Cream Man!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Jill and the Killers by Olivia Cuartero-Briggs (writer), Roberta Ingranata (artist), Warnia K. Sahadewa (colorist), Rebecca Nalty (colorist), and Haley Rose-Lyon (letterer). $19.99, 116 pgs, Oni Press.

This comic is about Jill, a high-schooler whose mother, a cop, is “missing,” although Jill is angry at people – her dad especially – who claim she’s missing when Jill keeps saying she’s dead. At the beginning of the book, Jill returns to school after taking some time off to deal with her mother’s disappearance, and she finds out that her friends have pretty much moved on, including Ginger, with whom she seemed to have at least a slight romantic relationship. Jill wants to get back into the “group,” but there’s a new girl in town, and she’s queen bee-ish in a way that feels exclusionary to Jill, who desperately wants her friends back. They sign up for a game in which a “murder box” is sent to you and you need to solve the case, but when the box arrives, it seems to point to a real case, and Jill wants to solve it, thinking it will get her back in with her gang. It soon becomes clear that the box was meant for her mother and somehow got lost in the mail, which makes Jill want to solve it even more. Of course, there’s plenty of danger involved!

This is a terrific comic, honestly. Cuartero-Briggs does a very nice job with the group dynamic, showing us how petty teenagers can be but also showing how fiercely loyal they can be, too. Jill is not always right, and as we learn more about the new queen bee, it becomes clear that she’s not as bitchy as we think. The characters feel real, which makes their predicaments feel more intense, not only when they’re trying to solve the case but also when Jill is trying to reconnect with her friends. Jill has been through a lot, but she’s not the only one, and her myopia can hurt people who don’t deserve and who she’s not trying to hurt. All the characters get nice development, which makes the book deeper than just a mystery story. It’s “volume 1,” because while Jill and her friends do solve the case, there’s still the mystery of her mother floating over Jill’s head, so we’ll see if the creators can return for more.

The art works pretty well – it’s not great, but it gets the job done. Ingranata does very good work with the characters’ facial expressions, which is good because they’re teens, so they’re always making wry faces at each other. There’s not a ton of action, so Ingranata has to make sure the characters come alive simply by how they interact with each other, and she does quite well with that. The book takes place in beautiful Seligman, Arizona, which is kind of odd because Seligman is tiny (population: 770), and it seems kind of weird to set the book there, but while we don’t get too much outdoor stuff in this comic, it does feel like it takes place in an isolated desert town, so there’s that. I don’t know if either main creator is from Seligman or if they just picked it randomly, but good for it! (Although it does bring up some questions about Jill’s mother’s disappearance/death, as she supposedly drowned in a large body of water, which can’t be anywhere near Seligman. Oh well!)

Jill and the Killers is a cool book. I hope we get more of it!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Local Man volume 3: Lost Ones by Tim Seeley (writer/artist), Tony Fleecs (writer/artist), Brad Simpson (colorist), Felipe Sobreiro (colorist), and Allen Passalaqua (colorist). $18.99, 175 pgs, Image.

Local Man comes to an end, and it’s been a pretty good series throughout. It’s better with the “Nineties Nostalgia” than Blood Squad Seven, although that’s early enough in its run, so maybe it will get better, but it seems like Seeley and Fleecs have done a bit better showing the way time changes things and twist our perceptions and makes us see everything differently, so while the nostalgia is there (there’s a Liefeldian homage in this volume that’s hilarious in its accuracy, but you can still feel the fondness the creators have for him), we also get the idea of moving on from that, which is important. Jack finally figures out who he is, and while it’s a bit clichéd, it still works well because he’s been through so much. The book has more of a sense of humor than Blood Squad Seven does, too, which is a bit strange, as Casey has always had a sense of humor about his comics, but it hasn’t quite come through yet in that book. I didn’t love the “year jump” thing that they did, from issue #13 to issue #25 (instead of just doing a #14 and narrating that it was a year later; the conceit is a twee but doesn’t bother me too much), because at the end of issue #13, Jack meets his future wife, and in issue #25, he’s married to her. The thing is … in issue #13, she’s married. Jack says at the end of that issue that he wants to get to know her, so he kind of went after her, ignoring the fact that she’s married. I mean, her marriage in issue #13 doesn’t have to be a happy one, and it takes two to tango, but … I don’t know, man. I actually kind of like it, even if it’s not what Seeley and Fleecs are going for, because it seems to imply that with all the growth Jack has done in the series, he’s still a bit of a douchebag. I dunno – I kind of like that, even if it’s a dick move by Jack.

Anyway, this is a pretty good series. Especially if you’re nostalgic for early 1990s Image stuff, which I know you all are!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Masterpiece by Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Alex Maleev (artist), Ian Herring (colorist), Moo Meng (color assistant), and Joshua Reed (letterer). $24.99, 139 pgs, Dark Horse.

I really like Bendis when he’s not wrecking Marvel superheroes, so this book – which is a heist comic – works quite well. That he’s back with Maleev is a nice bonus, too, as the art is quite nice. Maleev is never going to be all that great at action, and there’s not a ton of it in this book, but he does very well with the kinds of facial expressions that Bendis likes, plus he has a nice, grounded style that works well for the tone of this comic. In a few places, he gets to be creative with layouts and he and Herring can be a bit creative with color, and it adds a nice dimension to the art. Meanwhile, Bendis gives us the kind of protagonist he likes – a teenager who just happens to be the daughter of two master thieves (who are dead at the beginning of the comic, and Bendis seems determined to let us know that, yes, they’re dead and they’re not going to show up unexpectedly during this comic). She’s brilliant and rebellious, of course, although she does something wildly stupid to gain the attention of one of the richest men in the world, who kidnaps her – she’s called Emma, but he claims her real name is, yes, “Masterpiece” – and demands that she does something for him because her parents stole a shit-ton of money from him before she was born. He wants her to destroy an enemy of his, who is *wink wink* certainly not Martha Stewart. So Emma is in a pickle, but, in true heist-story fashion, she gathers a crew and comes up with a plan. You knew she would!

Bendis does a nice job with the characters – always his strong suit – and the plan itself is pretty clever and has nice twists and turns. Emma learns early on that neither her kidnapper nor his intended victim is particularly nice (I mean, the dude did kidnap her, so there’s that, but he doesn’t hurt her or anything), so the plan begins to evolve as she learns more about both people and their relationship to her parents. She has allies of her parents helping her, but also her own friends, and Bendis has fun with the generation gap at work with the characters. Emma’s solution is nice, too, because she does realize that you probably can’t steal enough money from the super-rich to make them not super-rich, so they need something else. The book zips along nicely, and there is, of course, the potential for more stories with Emma, although who knows if Bendis (and Maleev) is interested in that.

Masterpiece is pretty keen. It’s nice that Bendis can still bring it when he wants to!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Moon Dogs by Tananarive Due (writer), Kelsey Ramsay (artist), José Villarrubia (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer), and Will Dennis (editor). $3.99, 26 pgs, Image.

This is the third “Horizon Experiment” books to come out, and the first that I’m not really feeling too much. Ramsay’s art is fine, but a bit stiff in a few places and in one crucial place, her storytelling is just confusing. But Due’s story is just kind of there, and it’s disappointing. Instead of werewolves, she gives us were-hyenas, and her main character, Nala, is a hybrid, as her Somali mother is married to an American werewolf. It’s not a terrible idea in any way, and the central conflict – that Nala’s brother is hanging around with a group that wants to “come out” as were-creatures – isn’t bad, but Due really hammers the points that she’s making home, so the story simply becomes a polemic about race and even – to a degree – sexuality. Nala and the other characters continually make speeches about their state, and it grinds the momentum of the story to a halt. This isn’t too complex an allegory here, so there’s no reason for Due to make it text instead of leaving it in the subtext, but as we’ve seen recently, writers are either incapable of doing subtext or believe their readers won’t get it unless they’re bludgeoned over the head with it, so Due chooses that route so we know – really, really know! – what she’s talking about here. I know I’ve beaten the drum for this a lot in the past few years, but it just seems like it’s gotten worse. Nala and her family are obviously black, so we grasp the metaphor right away, and Due could just give us an interesting story about were-hyenas and maybe how they’re very different from werewolves? It seems like readers would be able to figure it out from there. If not, I mean, fuck ’em. If they’re that stupid they probably don’t know how to read anyway!

This is not a terrible book at all, but it’s not quite as good as the first two issues in this “series.” We’ll see what the next one holds!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

My Bad volume 3: Escape from Peculiar Island by Mark Russell (writer), Bryce Ingram (writer), Peter Krause (artist), Joe Orsak (artist/colorist), Kelly Fitzpatrick (colorist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer), and Tom Peyer (editor). $17.99, 105 pgs, Ahoy Comics.

There’s not much to say about the third volume of My Bad – if you like Russell’s warped, satirical style of humor, you’ll probably like this, but if you don’t, you won’t. Russell and Ingram don’t do anything terribly different from the first two volumes – the Chandelier is still pretty pathetic, Emperor King is still a villain, although not a terribly good one, and Rush Hour continues to steadfastly not get involved in any problem that doesn’t involve traffic. There’s a bit of a through-plot – Emperor King is trying to take over the Peculiar Islands, a U.S. protectorate in the Caribbean, while the Chandelier is forced to sell his image rights in order to make money to pay off the IRS, which leads him to starting a podcast that is absolutely not poking fun at people like Joe Rogan – and while the plot is fine, it’s all the little goofy bits that make the book fun to read, from the “regional heroes” schtick (Cornboy! The Howlie! The Panhandle!) to the secret plotter trying to guide the heroes to better destinies. It’s silly, sure, but it’s done in a fine spirit, and it’s just fun to read. There’s nothing wrong with a book like that!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Outsiders: Planet of the Bat by Jackson Lanzing (writer), Collin Kelly (writer), Robert Carey (artist), Valentina Taddeo (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer), and Jessica Berbey (collection editor). $16.99, 144 pgs, DC.

I think it was Bill Reed, our favorite DC apologist (we love you, Bill!), who said that this book was just not very good. I didn’t order it, but my retailer throws things on my pile that he thinks I will like, and while I usually tell him to shove them somewhere unpleasant (oh, I don’t do that – I’m very polite!), with this one … I kept wanting to put it aside, but finally, I caved and got it! And … you know, it’s not bad. It’s frustrating and derivative, sure, but it’s not bad. Lanzing and Kelly try very, very hard to turn Planetary into a DC thing, and they don’t succeed, but we get six weirdo issues set in the DCU, which is never a bad thing. Most of DC’s weirdo titles don’t last, but the accretion of short arcs over the years, illuminating the weirdness of superhero universes in general, is never a bad thing. Kate Kane gets recruited by Luke Fox to join … well, “Planetary,” and they are joined by Drummer (no definite article for her!) and they go check out weird stuff in the DCU. They save the world from the Carrier, go underwater to check out monsters (where they are, um, challenged by the Challengers of the Unknown), go into another dimension peopled exclusively by Batmans, meet a century baby, visit a club run by Nocturna, and become fictional (sort of). It would be more fun, probably, if Kelly and Lanzing weren’t trying to link it to Ellis’s masterpiece so hard, but I get why they’re doing it. I also get why it didn’t work, because readers today don’t seem to want this kind of book in their superhero universes. DC used to have more success with this kind of thing, but in recent years, it seems like it’s become a harder sell. Oh well.

Carey’s art is pretty terrific, though. The “Bat-issue” is honestly hilarious, and Carey does a really nice job with the many variations of Batmans and Batwomans we see in the other dimension. The Nocturna issue is also keen, as he gets to draw a bunch of weird creatures and does it very well. The book is a bit dark, but not so much that you can’t see anything, and that’s just how “serious” books roll in the DCU these days. Oh well.

I do have one question: Luke Fox tells Kate very early on that she won’t have to wear her wig if she joins him, but for the rest of the book, her hair looks exactly the same as it is when they meet, when she’s presumably wearing “the wig.” Why would Lanzing and Kelly put that in the book if they do nothing with it?!?!? Maybe “Planetary” could investigate that!

I wish this has been better, but more than that, I wish it had been more popular. It had some potential, but such is life.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Red Light by Sarah H. Cho (writer), Priscilla Petraites (artist), C.P. Smith (artist), Miroslav Mrva (colorist), and Sal Cipriano (letterer). $15.99, 102 pgs, AWA Studios.

This is a fairly standard thriller – women is kept in a gilded cage by a man; she escapes with the help of another man because she wants to live a free life; she is recaptured because the man doesn’t want to let her go; she learns that she can’t rely on no man and needs to stand up to her jailer on her own; TRIUMPH!!!! If you’ve seen the 2002 classic Enough with Jennifer Lopez, you know this story, but Cho does some twists with it: it takes place in the future, and the woman – Lacy – is an AI sex worker. There’s quite a bit of nudity in the book, and Cho does actually introduce some ideas about sentience and free will and whether Lacy should have any agency (I mean, of course she should, but the idea that she’s not quite human still makes it a tiny bit of a conundrum) and whether Adam – her creator – is even doing anything wrong (I mean, of course he is, but again …). Cho also does some nice work with Adam to let us know why he does what he does with Lacy, and it’s not a bad way to go. Of course, Lacy has to stand up for herself in the end, and she does, but it’s still a nice thing that Cho does, making Adam not quite the monster we think he is. Meanwhile, Petraites does nice work with the art, but I’m not sure why she doesn’t finish it. Smith is a decent artist, but his style is different than Petraites’s, and the shift in the final issue (which is when Smith steps in) is jarring. This was only five issues – they couldn’t have made sure Petraites could finish it? (I mean, it’s possible circumstances were beyond their control, but they couldn’t have delayed the issue at all, given that this doesn’t tie in to anything else that was being published at the time?) It doesn’t wreck the book, but it is a bit wonky.

This is deeper than you might expect for a sex thriller, which is always nice to see. Give it a look!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Section VII: Cases of the Strange and Unnatural by Marek Turek (writer), Tomasz Kontny (writer), and a bunch of artists. £9.99, 158 pgs, Afterlight Comics.

This is a pretty nifty comic that is very much like B.P.R.D., except it’s set in Poland in the 1960s, which adds a nice layer of government oppression to the whole thing. The government creates a section that deals specifically with supernatural threats, and we get a bunch of different stories of the team responding to such threats. It’s nicely done, and Turek and Kontny don’t forget that the group not only has to keep what they’re doing a secret, they have to deal with a government that is even less inclined to let these things get out than our own government would be. The stories are all fairly standard horror stories, but because the writers bring in some Polish culture – the role of the Catholic Church in the country, even under the Communists; the presence of “gypsies” in the country – they’re able to make them more specific to Poland, which adds some nice flair to them all. There’s even what looks like a children’s story that gets darker and darker as we go along, with the art remaining slightly goofy so it sneaks up on us. The art is, generally, quite good – it rangers from the crisp lines and beautiful rendering of Grzegorz Pwalak in the first and fourth stories to the scratchy, gritty work of Krzysztof Budziejewski in the second to the Paul Pope-esque work of Arkadiusz Klimek in the final story. It’s a nifty comic, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing to see more stories of Section VII!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Sink #12 by John Lees (writer), Alex Cormack (artist), and Shawn Lee (letterer). $4.99, 25 pgs, ComixTribe.

The latest issue of Sink focuses on Si McKirdie, the crime boss of Glasgow who’s been mentioned quite a bit in this series but hasn’t been seen (I can’t remember if we’ve seen him at all, but if we have, it’s been brief). This issue, however, is all about him, as his boss comes to town (and Lees and Cormack make him ridiculous, and I can’t believe he won’t get some comeuppance soon enough), who demands something from him, something that Si doesn’t actually have on him at the moment. The issue is about McKirdie tracking it down without letting his boss know that he’s kind of misplaced it, and Lees is a good enough writer to blend the humor of this kind of sitcom situation with the deadliness of both what will happen to McKirdie if he doesn’t produce the thing and what will happen to the people under him if they don’t produce the thing for him. Lees does a very nice job showing us that McKirdie isn’t just a crime boss, he’s part of the community, and Cormack does his usual excellent job with the art. And yes, that dude on the cover does show up, and Cormack makes him even more ridiculous than he is on this cover. Sink continues to be an excellent comic, so you should hunt it down. It won’t hurt!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

BOOKS

The Terror by Dan Simmons. 766 (!) pgs, 2007, Back Bay Books.

I watched the television series that was based on this book back in 2018, but had never read the book. Well, now I have! It’s pretty danged good, honestly, although some things bug me about it. Simmons uses several different points of view – mostly but not exclusively Francis Crozier, the captain of the Terror, and Henry Goodsir, the doctor of Erebus – to give us a portrait of the expedition to find the Northwest Passage in the 1840s, which is famous for the fact that every crew member disappeared without a trace (I mean, yes, they all died, but because of where they were, they disappeared). It’s a gripping, tense read, as we know they’re all going to die but they battle on, the elements taking their toll as well as the mysterious creature that’s stalking and killing them. Despite the novel’s length, it never drags (except at the very end, which I’ll get to), and Simmons does a nice job with making the characters fascinating even though some of them get very little “page time” before they’re dispatched. There has to be a villain, of course, and there is, and it’s a bit disappointing because Simmons turns him almost into a superhuman, when it seems like the captain could have easily quelled any rebellion he stirred up pretty easily. Oh well. Simmons doesn’t do the best job with the monster, either, because he can’t quite bring himself to describe it well – the characters see it and can’t believe what they’re seeing, so on the one hand, that’s fine, but it does feel like he wants it to remain too mysterious, and it’s a bit vexing. I don’t love the ending, either – Crozier is the last survivor, and he’s rescued by the Inuit woman (the “Esquimaux,” as the English call her) who’s been hanging around the ships and the crew for months – and the book gets a bit too … I don’t know, anti-Western, I guess, which isn’t too big a deal, but Simmons makes it sound like the life of a Native is so super-duper when it sounds just slightly less brutal than any other life in 1848. There’s no reason Crozier couldn’t have found a small measure of happiness in England instead of northern Canada, and the supernatural parts of the book are just a bit too … not weird, exactly, because I don’t mind weird, but … easy? It’s almost as if Simmons wrote the entire book to write about how stupid the English are. I mean, sure, they’re stupid, but … I don’t know, it just feels tonally off from the rest of the book. It doesn’t help that Simmons adds a sex scene that, like most sex scenes, borders on the ridiculous, but I just can’t articulate what’s wrong with the end of the book. It just feels off. But that doesn’t really mess up the rest of the book, and I don’t mind that Crozier ends up where he does, just how he gets there. It’s still a very good book, and it might seem long, but it is really hard to put down, so it doesn’t take too long to get through!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

TELEVISION

Longmire seasons 1-6 (Netflix). We watched the first three seasons of this show back when it was on AMC, but then it migrated to Netflix and we just lost track of it. Recently, I said to the wife, “We should watch the whole thing,” and so we did! It’s fine – it’s very much “Dad TV” (I guess that’s a thing), in that Robert Taylor is a tough guy of few words with tragedy in his past and a no-nonsense approach to law enforcement that occasionally gets him in trouble, but he still has a heart of gold. The series is set in Wyoming (but filmed in New Mexico, which annoys me, honestly*), and Taylor is the sheriff of a county, and it’s nice that the Indian community is represented quite well and often in the series. Early on, the series is framed by the death of Walt Longmire’s wife about a year before the series begins, because she was murdered and Longmire doesn’t know who did it. That’s solved by the end of the AMC portion of the series, and once we move to Netflix, it becomes more about Jacob Nighthorse (A Martinez) and his casino, which Longmire really doesn’t like, plus a lawsuit against the sheriff for a wrongful death (which is bullshit, we know, but Longmire does skirt the law on a lot of occasions, so it’s not like it doesn’t have some merit). Taylor is fine as the taciturn sheriff, and while I like Katee Sackhoff as his main deputy, they can’t help themselves by making her pine for Walt (and he for her, a little bit), which makes her character much less interesting. She’s married at the beginning of the show but gets divorced during it, and the showrunners just dance around their yearning for each other for most of (sadly, not all of) the show. Sackhoff is 17 years younger than Taylor, which isn’t the worst age discrepancy, but more than that, he’s her boss, and they seem to have more of a father-daughter relationship in the show, which works because Longmire has a daughter, from whom he’s semi-estranged, so the dynamic between him, Sackhoff, and Cassidy Freeman (who plays his daughter) adds some nice tension to the show, which is thrown way off by the attraction between Longmire and Vic (Sackhoff). Lou Diamond Phillips plays Longmire’s best friend, and Zahn McClarnon plays the head reservation cop, and Martinez is good as the casino owner (although Longmire hates him, which means that although he never seems to do anything illegal, at the end of the show it seems like he’s paying for a crime), and it’s always nice to see Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal (other fun guest stars include Gerald McRaney, Peter Stormare, and Tom Wopat). The other main deputy, Bailey Chase, left the show after three seasons, and I think the show suffered a bit without him providing a good foil for Walt, as he ran for sheriff against him (and lost) and always seemed to be politicking just a tiny bit too much instead of policing. It’s a decent show, and it’s nice to see a show with a lot of different Natives depicted, because the show has a lot of different viewpoints from their culture, which is neat.

* I mean, not too much, but I always wonder why things can’t be filmed where they’re set. I get that New Mexico – I think – offers tax breaks to companies to film there, but why wouldn’t any state do that? Is it a weather thing? A political thing? Beats me. It only really bugs me when the places being filmed look nothing like the places where the show is set or when the filmmakers include obvious landmarks from a place that isn’t where the story occurs, and New Mexico looks enough like Wyoming, I guess, but … it still bugs me. Yes, I’m weird.

Moonflower Murders (PBS). In this sequel to Magpie Murders (see here!), Lesley Manville is living with her boyfriend in Crete, but things aren’t as great as she’d hoped, so when she gets an opportunity to return to England, she takes it (she doesn’t dump the boyfriend, because she’s happy with him, but she misses England). As with the first series, this one involves murder (of course), and it involves an Atticus Pünd novel, as the author of those novels, Conleth Hill (who was killed in the first series but shows up a few times here in flashback), used a real-life case to write a Pünd novel, so the answer to who committed the murder in “real” life is hidden in the book. Manville is asked by a family whose daughter may have figured out the killer but then went missing to find her and, if she can, solve the murder. As with the first series, this is a clever conceit, as Manville often “speaks” to Pünd (played drolly by Tim McMullan) to get insight into her mystery, and the Pünd mystery plays out simultaneously, with actors often pulling double duty with roles in the “real” world and in the world of the novel. Manville’s life is a bit messy, but unlike the first series, her relationship with Andreas (Alexandros Logothetis) remains solid (there’s a brief “Is she cheating on me?” thing Andreas goes through, but it’s nipped in the bud quickly), so it’s more about what she wants to do with her life now that she’s had a taste of “happily ever after.” The mysteries are good, too, although one thing bugs me: we find out why the daughter figured it out, and it’s certainly clever, but I’m not sure it works. Without giving too much away, it seems like it would be quite a leap to make to the correct answer – I’m not saying she couldn’t make it, but it just seems like a lot. Still, it’s a fun murder mystery (two, actually, but who’s counting?), and that’s always groovy!

Van der Valk season 4 (PBS). Piet van der Valk (Marc Warren) continues to be a cranky, brilliant cop, tolerated by Lucienne (Maimie McCoy) because he’s not really a bad guy, just cranky, and he gets the job done. I don’t love Van der Valk, but it’s a decent enough cop show. They still can’t keep secondary characters, as the actors keep moving on, but the fun coroner, played by Darrell D’Silva, is still around, which is nice. I was somewhat impressed that, in the final case of this season, they introduced a douchebag billionaire and it turned out he wasn’t the bad guy (even though van der Valk wanted him to be), so that was nice. I don’t know. The setting (Amsterdam) is nice, the cases are fine, the cast is decent – there’s not much more to say!

**********

Here’s the money I spent this month:

6 November: $269.34
13 November: $150.06
20 November: #186.42
27 November: $148.33

Total for November: $754.15
(Nov. ’23: $497.81)
(Nov. ’22: $1203.33)
(Nov. ’21: $1075.15)

YTD: $6765.03
(2023: $6278.91)
(2022: $10,195.54)
(2021: $7934.22)

Here’s the publishers from which I bought comics this month:

Afterlight Comics: 1 (1 trade paperback)
Ahoy Comics: 1 (1 trade paperback)
Alaxis Press: 1 (1 graphic novel)
AWA Studios: 1 (1 trade paperback)
Boom! Studios: 1 (1 single issue)
Clover Press: 1 (1 graphic novel)
ComixTribe: 1 (1 single issue)
Dark Horse: 6 (2 “classic” reprints, 1 graphic novel, 2 single issues, 1 trade paperback)
DC: 8 (6 single issues, 2 trade paperbacks)
Dstlry: 1 (1 single issue)
Fantagraphics: 3 (1 “classic” reprint, 2 single issues)
Image: 8 (2 graphic novels, 3 single issues, 3 trade paperbacks)
Mad Cave: 2 (1 “classic” reprint, 1 graphic novel)
Magnetic: 1 (1 “classic” reprint)
Marvel: 14 (1 “classic” reprint, 13 single issues)
Oni Press: 4 (3 single issues, 1 trade paperback)

6 “classic” reprints (50)
6 graphic novels (72)
0 manga volumes (9)
32 single issues (176)
10 trade paperbacks (109)

Here’s the yearly list of publishers!

Ablaze: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 0 (3 graphic novels, 2 manga volumes, 1 trade paperback)
About Comics: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Abrams: 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels)
Afterlight Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 (1 trade paperback)
Ahoy: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 (2 trade paperbacks)
Alaxis Press: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 (1 graphic novel)
Antarctic: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 1 trade paperback)
Avery Hill Publishing: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
AWA: 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 (6 trade paperbacks)
Battle Quest Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (2 trade paperbacks)
Black Panel Press: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Bloomsbury Publishing: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Boom! Studios: 1 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 1 (1 “classic” reprint, 7 single issues, 6 trade paperbacks)
Cartoon Books: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Clarion Books: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Clover Press: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 (2 “classic” reprints, 2 graphic novels)
ComicMix: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0(1 “classic” reprint)
ComixTribe: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 (2 single issues)
Dark Horse: 3 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 5 + 6 (7 “classic” reprints, 4 graphic novels, 17 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
DC: 1 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 8 + 6 + 25 + 8 (4 “classic” reprint, 45 single issues, 20 trade paperbacks)
DC/Marvel: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Dead Sky: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Drawn & Quarterly: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (2 graphic novels, 1 single issue))
Dstlry: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 (1 single issue, 2 trade paperbacks)
Dynamite: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Epicenter Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Fairsquare Comics: 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 +1 + 0 (3 graphic novels, 1 trade paperback)
Fantagraphics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 0 + 3 (6 “classic” reprints, 4 graphic novels, 2 single issues)
First: 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
First Second Books: 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Floating World Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Heritage Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Humanoids: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels)
IDW: 0 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 1 + 0 (1 single issue, 7 trade paperbacks)
Image: 4 + 3 + 2 + 5 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 3 + 6 + 8 + 8 (2 “classic” reprints, 9 graphic novels, 18 single issues, 27 trade paperbacks)
Invader Comics: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 1 single issue)
Keenspot: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 single issue)
Living the Line: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 manga volume)
Mad Cave Studios: 2 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 1 + 2 (2 “classic” reprints, 4 graphic novels, 4 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
Magma Comix: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
Magnetic: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 (1 “classic” reprint, 1 graphic novel)
Marvel: 3 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 1 + 3 + 3 + 10 + 9 + 15 +14 (10 “classic” reprints, 51 single issues, 6 trade paperbacks)
Massive Publishing: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
MCD Books: 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Microcosm: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 single issue)
NBM: 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels)
Oni Press: 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 3 + 4 (1 graphic novel, 11 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
Papercutz: 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 “classic” reprints)
Pantheon Books: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Penthouse: 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 (5 single issues)
Random House: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Rebellion/2000AD: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Scout: 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 single issues)
SelfMadeHero Books: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Silver Sprocket: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
SLG: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Storm King Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
T Pub: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Ten Ton Press: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Titan Comics: 0 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 5 single issues, 3 trade paperbacks)
TKO Studios: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
Top Shelf: 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Valiant: 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 single issue)
Vanguard: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Vault: 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 5 trade paperbacks)
Viz Media: 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 (6 manga volumes)
A Wave Blue World: 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
White Hart Comics: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)

**********

I’m still extremely angry about the election results, and it’s actually pissing me off that I’m pissed off. I play tennis three times a week with a bunch of people, and have been for several years, and I know at least one of them voted for the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief and another one might have or might just be someone who thinks you should never criticize the president, no matter who it is (she was a bit grumpy that another player and I were criticizing Our Leathery Leader, but she didn’t say anything about voting for him and the way she was talking, it might have been a “we’re American, respect the office” kind of thing, which is bullshit but at least doesn’t automatically make you a voter for the Tangerine Terror). I like these people, and I certainly don’t want to blow up the tennis group, and I don’t think they’re racist misogynists, but I have also been less friendly to them in the past month, because I’m having a hard time getting past it. It’s annoying. I’m heartened by a few things – his cabinet picks have been atrocious, to the point where even his bootlickers in the Senate are saying, “Hey, hold up a minute here,” and his popular vote margin has shrunk to almost nothing, but he still thinks he has a mandate. I read an interesting article about presidents thinking they have a mandate – presidents, mind you, who won the popular vote by quite a larger margin than Fucknuts McGee did – and pushing through with their agenda even though it’s clearly not popular. The majority of the country wants abortion rights, and I wonder what’s going to happen when Republicans try to ban it. The Giant Flaming Asshole “running” the country does not self-reflect or course-correct, so I have some hope that he will overreach tremendously very early in his term and get hammered for it, and he’ll spend the next four years trying desperately to regain the worship of his acolytes rather than wrecking the country. We shall see. It also think that his cabinet will be trying so hard to curry favor with their Overlord that they won’t be able to screw things up too much. I just hope we can hold on for 2-4 years and see what happens, but I still fear what he’ll be able to accomplish with the help of the Orange-Butthole-Felchers in Congress, who are scrambling over themselves to see who can take the Diseased Dick in all their orifices first. It’s not going to be a fun few years, people.

Once again, I have nothing else to say because I’m still so angry. I mean, football is coming down to the wire, Penn State is inexplicably playing for the Big Ten Championship, the Eagles are kicking butt, and the weather in the Basin of the Sun has finally turned nice, where it will remain for a few (far too few!) months. But the new presidency hangs over it all, and it’s still making me grumpy. Oh well.

But we always have comics, right? Comics are the balm in Gilead! I hope you were able to read some this month, and I hope you had a good Thanksgiving if you’re one of those people who does Thanksgiving (and not one of those weirdo Canadians, who celebrated it in October like the Commies they are), and I hope you’re having a good day today!