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Showing posts from April, 2014

"Hoping is what kept most men from living"

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  Considering this is a Richard Matheson book, an author who is probably best known for his horror stories, I have initial expectations that this was going to be a scary venture in the same manner as Hell House was when I saw the movie as a child and later on read the book. But in the first fifty pages or so of this novel, my expectations were met in a different way yet it was also something more satisfying which could be what Matheson has intended when he wrote it. The Shrinking Man tells the story of Scott Carey who was one day sprayed with a radioactive chemical by accident, and found himself physically shrinking since. The novel perfectly opens with a very terrifying description of Scott being chased down by a spider. At first glance, this book seems to be a very simplistic survivalist story about one man's struggle to endure a hopeless circumstance--but the existential horror that is the overall thematic scope of the plot is definitely its most intriguing aspect. This

"To fallen heroes who fight for another day"

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In every list of the greatest Batman stories ever written, this is always on top of the pile (rivaled once in a while by his other work, Year One , if not followed closely by Alan Moore's The Killing Joke ). Naturally, I was excited to start reading this although I cheated on myself a little because I did watch its animation adaptation last year. But having the chance to read the source material myself, I started to understand why this was such an important work when it was released about the same time Watchmen was in the late eighties. I was unfortunate enough to be born in the nineties so I wasn't there to see firsthand how Batman's narrative evolved in the comics and I was quite envious of those who were there to witness what Frank Miller accomplished when he wrote The Dark Knight Returns ; considering how much of its impact still echoes in the modern interpretations of Batman and his villains to this very day. Still, that also means that I can view this piece of l

"Twelve Singular Mindscapes"

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This thick deluxe edition caught my attention for the sole reason that it featured Adam West' wacky Batman in his most iconic pose. I was definitely more than intrigued and I knew even before I ever found out about its contents that I must possess it, sooner rather than later. When I did get to purchase it, I was stunned by the range and depth of this collection which featured a promising roster composed of talented men who are said to be 'twelve of the greatest artists in comics'. The body of work that is featured and scrumptiously presented in SOLO: The Deluxe Edition does not disappoint at all. If the aim of this anthology is to provide even the most novice of readers an array of self-contained stories featuring their own original characters and some DC icons, then I think it had exceeded such expectations in more ways than one. Furthermore, the noble intention to help any curious newb to appreciate what the comics medium has to offer has really impressed me. I on

"Deliriously twisted tales of sci-fi horror"

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Alan Moore is probably my favorite comic book writer EVER solely because Watchmen remains a personally influential work for me (and, to a lesser extent, his erotica Lost Girls ). I didn't know what I was going to get when I bought this, but my faith in anything Moore has written had allowed me to risk purchasing this almost obscure work of his, at least as far as I know. The Complete Future Shocks is an anthology of comic strips, ranging from one-spread stories to at least four to six pages of narrative. Originally, it was also "a long-running series of short strips in the weekly comic 2000 AD in 1977. The name originates in a book titled Future Shock , written by Alvin Toffler, published in 1970 ( source )." There has been a handful of successful writers who wrote for this series and one of them is Alan Moore and this collected edition proves just that. Collaborating with a roster of some of comics' great artists, Moore has created dimensional and self-cont