This was excellent. I liked the artwork very much. Some very unusual page layouts, visually different. Really good story telling. Horror elements that reminded me of Stephen King. Very ominous and creepy. I will definitely look up more works by Sorrentino. Old Man Logan has been on my radar for a while anyway.
My chapter reviews are somewhat spoilerish, I give away some minor plot points. You have been warned.
Issue #1 – We start off with two storylines. There is Norton, a former mental patient, obsessively collecting waste allover town and cataloguing it. And there is Father Fred, a priest, arriving at his new parish, Gideon Falls.
They are both being led to the same target, the Black Barn.
Issue #2 – so far the story is good. Ominous. The artwork is different. It looks a bit like a coloured lithography.
Father Fred, aka Wilfred, is in a spot of trouble. There have been some murders and he is a person of interest.
And it looks as if nobody, who knows about the Black Barn, is safe.
Issue #3 – Norton inadvertently pulls his psychologist into the story and into danger.
Father Fred settles into life at Gideon Falls and holds his first mass. He meets most of his parishioners and the members of town, including the more unusual ones. Some pretty interesting artwork…
Issue #4 – the unusual page layouts keep on coming. Father Frank keeps on finding out more about the history of Gideon Falls.
Issue #5 – pretty cool artwork. I especially like the different styles between Norton‘s and Father Fred‘s story.
Issue #6 – ok, then. The climax, the barn, partial resolution, a start into the next volume…
I just signed up for Dewey‘s Reverse Readathon. Spontaneously and rather foolishly. It will start in a little less than 3 hours, at 2 a.m. my time. When I will most likely be in bed, I am really tired already! Well, maybe…. I just started a batch of sourdough bread and need to do another two stretch-and-folds. Anyway… I can read a bit in the morning. In the afternoon I am at a birthday party and I might be there quite a long time. Maybe more reading in the last hours of the readathon. I will definitely not be around a lot for this one. We‘ll see!
I feel a little lost, actually, as I haven‘t done any of the preppy things. Oh well, I will check in when I can. And I will set up my timer to keep at least some kind of track of my reading. There is a bingo card for updates to Instagram…
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Thisweek‘s topic / August 3: Titles or Covers That Made Want to Read/Buy the Book
Tricky. I mainly pick up books that are recommended to me by my reading buddies. Or books by favourite authors, never mind the cover or title. But I will have a look at my want-to-read list and see if I can recall what triggered my interest.
I picked up this novella on Netgalley. I honestly can‘t remember why I chose it, but assume that the cover pulled me in and then the title. Because the blurb is not grabbing me right now.
In a far future city, where you can fall to a government cull for a single mistake, And What Can We Offer You Tonight tells the story of Jewel, established courtesan in a luxurious House. Jewel’s world is shaken when her friend is murdered by a client, but somehow comes back to life. To get revenge, they will both have to confront the limits of loyalty, guilt, and justice.
I went looking for comics written by Jeff Lemire, because I like him and want to work on his backlist. Here the title drew me in. I like SF about AI and this title suggest that something slightly unusual might have reached sentience and that offers unusual options…
When a separatist attack kills the adults on board a colony ship in deep space, the on-board A.I. VALARIE must help the ship’s children survive the perils of space.
Here I was looking for comics set underwater. I have a thing for anything underwater, from documentaries about the deep sea to cheesy creature features involving Megalodon. I definitely picked this one for the title. Captain Nemo is a classic. I don‘t expect this to follow Jules Verne, but who knows.
It’s 1925, fifteen years after the death of Captain Nemo, when his daughter Janni Dakkar launches a grand Antarctic expedition to lay the old man’s burdensome legacy to rest.
Oh yes, I have a thing for cheesy creature features set in Antarctica as well. Or adventure novels. That clinched the deal.
Definitely the title. A planet in the Goldilocks Zone is in a distance to the sun, where conditions are just right for human habitation. So, an SF about colonization? Or finding a new home for humanity… Instant winner.
This is The Martian by way of The Handmaid’s Tale – a bold and thought-provoking new high-concept thriller
Granted, I added this to my list, because it‘s Adrien Tchaikovsky. But isn‘t the cover pretty? And doesn‘t the title remind you of some awesome MMORPG?
In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race, a junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the locals he has sworn to study to save a planet from an unbeatable foe.
Title again. I did mention my fascination with all things underwater and creature features, right?
Now, off the coast of California, something is rising from the deep–and multiplying. Voracious, unstoppable, and migrating north, an ungodly life form trailed by a gruesome wake of corpses.
This really was a recommendation by someone in my buddy reading group. The title piqued my interest and the cover sealed the deal. It‘s simple at fist glance, but very stylish. And then you notice those rock spires curving in, looking like claws. Hm…
This psychological sci-fi thriller from a debut author follows one doctor who must discover the source of her crew’s madness… or risk succumbing to it herself.
Not sure how I ended up with this one, but I imagine that the cover drew me in… plus it has a very lyrical title.
The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.
So, that was more or less the last 10 books and comics that I added to my list and haven‘t actually read yet. Does anything here tempt you?
I don‘t follow award lists on a regular basis, but I will probably have a closer look at anything by Lemire on the Eisner Awards 2021 list. I‘ve been thinking about getting Sapiens by Harari and Parable of the Sower by Butler is tempting.
Best Continuing Series Bitter Root, by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene (Image) Daredevil, by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto (Marvel) The Department of Truth, by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds (Image) Gideon Falls, by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino (Image) Stillwater, by Chip Zdarsky and Ramón K Pérez (Image/Skybound) WINNER: Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai (IDW)
Best Limited Series Barbalien: Red Planet, by Jeff Lemire, Tate Brombal, and Gabriel Hernandez Walta (Dark Horse) Decorum, by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Huddleston (Image) Far Sector, by N. K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell (DC) Strange Adventures, by Tom King, Mitch Gerads, and Evan “Doc” Shaner (DC Black Label) WINNER: Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber (DC) We Live, by Inaki Miranda and Roy Miranda (AfterShock)
Best Graphic Album—Reprint Black Hammer Library Edition, vol. 2, by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormstom, Emi Lenox, and Rich Tommaso (Dark Horse) Criminal Deluxe Edition, vol. 3, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image) Eight-Lane Runaways, by Henry McCausland (Fantagraphics) Fante Bukowski: The Complete Works, by Noah Van Sciver (Fantagraphics) Herobear and the Kid: The Heritage, by Mike Kunkel (Astonish Factory) WINNER: Seeds and Stems, by Simon Hanselmann (Fantagraphics)
Best Adaptation from Another Medium Constitution Illustrated, by R. Sikoryak (Drawn & Quarterly) Parable of the Sower: The Graphic Novel Adaptation, by Octavia E. Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings (Abrams) Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind, vol. 1, adapted by Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave (Harper Perennial) Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, adapted by Ryan North and Albert Monteys (Archaia/BOOM!) WINNER: Superman Smashes the Klan, adapted by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (DC)
Best Writer Ed Brubaker, Pulp, Reckless (Image); Friday (Panel Syndicate) Matt Fraction, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (DC); Adventureman, November vols. 2–3, Sex Criminals (Image) Jonathan Hickman, Decorum (Image); Giant-Size X-Men, X-Men (Marvel) Jeff Lemire, Barbalien, Black Hammer, Colonel Weird: Cosmagog (Dark Horse); The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage (DC Black Label); Family Tree, Gideon Falls (Image) WINNER: James Tynion IV, Something Is Killing the Children, Wynd (BOOM! Studios); Batman (DC); The Department of Truth (Image); Razorblades (Tiny Onion) Chip Zdarsky, Stillwater (Image/Skybound), Daredevil, Fantastic Four/X-Men (Marvel)
The final issue of Volume 3. We follow Andy and Effie‘s adventure in one stream…
… and Telsa, Helda and Mila in the other…
… to a fairly predictable ending. Fairly short with 22 pages. Good, if not surprising. Ok, some surprises in between. Taking a break now, before picking up the issues of Volume 4.
The beginning of this one is told from Mila‘s perspective.
Mother‘s story continues, we go on a detour to Gnish and I spotted something that looked suspiciously similar to a light saber… Oh, an Telsa takes us to a really interesting place at the end of this issue! The plot thickens! One more issue in this story arc and volume…
An in-between issue. Andy fights vampires, the story of Mother is taken another step forward and we meet another character from Descender, who was not such a surprising surprise. He had to show up eventually.
If you are interested in this series, you should start with the first Descender volume:
A boy wakes up in a place where everybody else is dead. He has been asleep for 10 years. Turns out he‘s not a kid, but a robot companion.
Gorgeous watercolour artwork.
There are some pretty strong Star Wars vibes. That flashback was a throwback to Tatooine. All that was missing was R2D2 and C3P0. Plenty of potentially interesting planets and (hopefully to come) complex world building.
Tim, Driller and the yappy bot are great characters. The humans and otherwise biologic entities are a colourful bunch. Shocking violence! I screamed like a girl. Well, once… the bad guys are nasty. And the potentially nice guy is flawed. I liked the story of robots being the hunted underdogs.
The evil “Mother” may rule the universe with an iron hand, but even mothers were young once—and after growing up on an ice-covered planet, it’s easy to see why she might have an ice-covered heart, too.
Mostly in shades of gray and black with only a few splashes of colour for the important bits. Interesting. I wonder where this is going to lead us…
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 