The Great Escape had a box of graphic novels which had been marked down to $1.00 each. So of course I had to sit down on the floor and have a look at that. And there was lots of great stuff. Some of which I already had (Skreemer, for instance). Some of which I really wanted but ended up putting back (Steve Rude's The Moth, two volumes of the Mark Wheatley * illustrated Lone Justice, another thing or two which I've since forgotten) because I didn't think I'd get around to reading that much. And five of which I bought: Total Sell Out and Fortune and Glory by Brian Michael Bendis, Private Beach by David Hahn, Xanth Graphic Novel, Volume 1 - Return to Centaur (or: What Kind of Foal Am I?) by (deep breath) Piers Anthony, Richard Pini, Dennis Fujitake, and Gary Kato, and rock bottom by Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard. That's a whole lot of reading for a little bit of $. About 660 pages for $5 . . . but wait! Because TGE also hit me with their usual 25% off trade paperbacks discount, so it was $3.75 . . . so $3.98 including tax. Ummm . . . that's the price of one new Marvel (and, to be fair, just about everybody else except for the DC biweeklies) comic book . . . which weighs in at . . . what? 23 pages? I think less, but that's what Comixology says . . . which probably includes the cover . . . and maybe a text page introduction as well . . . but ANYway, you get the point. I'd also point out that the list price of the five books I bought was $66.75. So . . . yowza.
And a mere day and a morning later, I have already read three of those books and started my fourth.
I started with Return to Centaur, which I was actually kind of anxious to read--not sure why. The look of it reminded me (a lot) of Phil Foglio's take on Myth Adventures which (1) I'd read and enjoyed back in the day, even though I'd not read any of the Robert Asprin books, and (2) I'd been thinking about quite a bit lately . . . probably because I've seen several of the books at Half-Price Books. And it was pretty disappointing. There was a touching introduction detailing how the story came to be . . . as a tribute to a fan who had suffered grievously . . . but the story itself was pretty stupid and riddled with really bad puns. Not even groaner-type puns, just "why did you think that would be a good idea?" type puns. And just to add that extra kick, the story ends abruptly, to be continued in Xanth: Morning Becalms Electra . . . and even if I wanted to read it, it looks like that is completely unavailable. (In fact, none of my go-to online bookstores had ever even HEARD of it, which doesn't happen very often. And by not very often, I mean ever. Hell, Ebay hasn't even heard of it.) So . . . it was still worth a dollar . . . or 75¢, anyway . . . and I did learn that the word Xanth comes from the middle of author Piers Anthony's name, which I thought was kind of interesting. So there's that.
I next went to David Hahn's Private Beach, which looked like and reminded me a great deal of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise--which came out almost a decade before Hahn's book, so no doubts as to who made who there. There were some things I really liked about Hahn's book, and I wouldn't mind reading a bit more of the story, but (1) it looks like there's not much more of it out there, and (2) there were a few things that put me off more than a little bit, to wit: [a] there were three or four references to "retarded" people that I thought were pretty fuckin' mean-spirited & [b] Hahn is so Tit Obsessed that it's almost funny . . . except that it's not. I'm also thinking that in general it's not a great idea for a guy to do a book that is almost completely centered on a female perspective. Especially when there's not really a very good reason for doing that. (Couldn't he at least have called in a female co-writer to attempt to keep him honest?) Despite all of that, this was definitely worth my money and then some, and it even made me want to go back and read some more Strangers in Paradise--a series I didn't pay nearly enough attention to, though I did enjoy what I read of it.
rock bottom really kicked ass. Joe Casey . . . a writer I've had no love for previously . . . did a really good job on this one. And the art, by Charlie Adlard, was just stunning. Way different from his work on The Walking Dead or Astronauts in Trouble or White Death. For one thing, his line here is so thin . . . almost like we're looking at pencil work, but more substantial than un-inked pencil work looks when it's printed. Just fucking amazing stuff. If you only know Charlie from The Walking Dead, I think it's easy to think of him as being just a kind of "dependable" artist. You know, good, for sure, but nothing fancy, nothing all that interesting. But that's just not true. It kind of makes me wish that he would ditch TWD and strike out for The Territory. Even though I love his work on TWD. But he so obviously has more in him, and knocking back 300 or so pages of that every year (more or less--the book regularly comes out more than once a month and often has more than the usual number of pages, so it might be even more than that) can't possibly leave him enough time and energy to unleash on other projects of any substance, and that's just a sin This guy is so good. Do a little Google Image search for White Death by Charlie Adlard and you'll be searching the house for your socks.
And I started reading one of the Bendis books, Fortune and Glory, and it is already delightful.
So it looks like I might actually knock back all five of my purchases before it's time for another trip to The Great Escape . . . so maybe I'll sit on the floor and make another pile of goodies.
Unless you beat me to it.
I would like to have a look at those Wheatley books, though . . . .
* One of the two brilliant people behind one of my all-time favorite comic book series, Mars.
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