Walking on the Moon

There’s a new grap release, to 1.43. Unless you’ve been having trouble with compilation, the upgrade’s not urgent. The CHANGES file has details. The FreeBSD port upgrade is in submission.

Once again, a few weeks of comics together.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #21, Aragones, Evanier, Hardin, Faucher. This read like a pretty good Spirit story to me. That’s never a negative thing to say about a story. It moved along crisply; the characters acted like the Spirit cast; the art looked good. Overall, I liked the issue, but I didn’t love it. I guess these guys don’t inspire me, but it seems solid work.

Captain America #42, Brubaker, Epting, Ross. A big arc ties up this issue with plot front and center. Overall, it felt a little rushed. Considering how measured the pacing of the arc has been up until now, things reached a head awfully quickly. No one steps out of character and there are plenty of threads still out there to pull the story forward. Still a great series, but maybe not the greatest issue.

No Hero #1, Ellis and Ryp. The plan here seems to be an exploration of how much humanity one loses to become superhuman. This is the same team that brought us Black Summer, and the same sorts of strengths and weaknesses are on display here. The writing is solid enough but the subtleties of the art aren’t there. We’ll see where this goes.

Top Ten Season Two #1, Cannon and Ha. Top Ten is one of my favorite series: it’s Alan Moore writing Hill Street Blues in a city populated entirely by super-heroes. It’s fairly daring in that screwing either part of it up breaks the spell completely. Top Ten was both the character-driven serial and a clever, affectionate send-up of the super-hero genre. Alan Moore pulled this off brilliantly in words while Zander Cannon and Gene Ha’s incredibly detailed art filled the panel with both believable characters and obscure in-jokes.

As if to show how difficult this is, there was an attempt at a sequel by Paul Di Fillippo and Jerry Ordway that was unreadable if you’d read the original.

I picked up this attempt because of Cannon and Ha’s clear ties to the material. It’s not bad. The art’s gorgeous, and the characters all act like they should. The plot seems less subtle than Moore might have done, but it’s Top Ten. We’ll see how it develops, but I’ll stick around for another issue.

If you’ve never read Top Ten, I recommend picking up one of the trade paperbacks from the original run.

Doktor Sleepless #9, Ellis & Rodriguez. New arc in the Doktor Sleepless story after the revelations in issue 8. We jump ahead 2 months and add a new character. It’s worthwhile to see Heavenside from a new perspective and the plot’s moving ahead. Good issue.

All-Star Superman #12, Morrison & Quitely. While this wasn’t the front-to-back joy that some of the other issues in the series was, it kept the tone and warmth that brought the Silver Age to life. There were several genuinely moving moments and it tied up the series perfectly. This series captures the world of Silver Age Superman with the eyes of compassionate fans who show it to the world through those eyes. It’s really a great series.

Madame Xanadu #3 & #4, Wagner & Hadley. I approach every new Madame Xanadu twice. First I read through and enjoy the story that Hadley and Wagner are telling, and then I go back and gawp at the layouts and art. It’s amazing how much subliminal storytelling is going on in Hadley’s art. The plots are getting a little more rooted in the DC Universe than earlier issues (though that was Jason Blood wandering around Camelot).

It’s a nice mix for me. The comics snob in me gets to revel in the balanced storytelling and the comics geek in me gets to say “look it’s the StarHeart!” If you enjoy comics on either level, pick this up.

Secret Six #2, Simone, Scott, Hazlewood. This is probably my favorite book coming out these days. In just two issues I’ve gotten wrapped up in the lives of the Six and I’m pulling for them as they are wending their fast-paced way through their latest caper. And that’s really what this is: a well-executed caper movie set in the DC Universe. A great caper movie’s tough enough to carry off in the real world, but in the twisty passages of DC continuity it can be even trickier. They’re willing to ground the goings on in the DC world without making readers spend a week in Wikipedia to keep up. The book’s full of smart, clever dialog and expressive art that tells the story both at the scale of who’s doing what to who and how each character’s reacting to the goings on. It’s something of a trifle, yet, but so well done that one could easily expect more. Even if this is all there is, it’s an awful lot.

A couple weeks ago my venerable 1990 Miata announced it wanted to be traded by flinging a spark plug out of the engine block, stripping the threads as it went. Now there are things one can do to repair such a thing, but it sort of makes you ask what’s next on the 18 year old car. I figured rather than waiting to see, it seemed like a good time to try a new car.

I picked the Scion xB and was able to pick up a used one for a reasonable price. It’s pretty much the anti-Miata. It’s got the boxy appearance of a mini-UPS van, though it actually gets better gas mileage than the Miata. I’ve been happy with it so far and look forward to a few more years of service.

WordPress cropped the thumbnails somewhat oddly.

This grap update has been in the pipe for a while.  It fixes some lurking bugs, including some pic incompatibilities, so it’s worth upgrading.  The CHANGES file has the details.

The FreeBSD port is moving through the approval process.  Source is at http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/Vault/software/grap/grap-1.42.tar.gz .

Shortly after announcing I was playing with Empathy, I began poking at Pidgin (the former Gaim).  I like Pidgin’s multi-account handling better than Empathy’s and there’s some documentation, so I’ve switched over.  Still, if you’re expecting to see me on IM and don’t, drop me an e-mail.

I’ve been playing with a new instant messaging client, Empathy. If you’ve been having trouble getting my attention, that may be why.  Mail me if you see problems.

I finished Wind, Sand and Stars in Bell, Book, and Candle.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit #20, Aragones, Evanier, Smith, Wong.  As critical as I’ve been of these guys, I have to admit this issue was enjoyable.  It’s a nice, quirky mystery featuring the Spirit cast in all their likable glory.  Not a world changing story, but a fun way to pass some time.  Nicely done.

Gravel #3 & #4, Ellis, Wolfer, Jimenez.  I thought I’d talked about issue 3, but I don’t see the comments.  This probably isn’t for me.  I’m just not drawn into the world and so the limitations seem more apparent.  There’s a lot of gore and violence that are for their own sake, and the art’s not dynamic enough to make it visceral for me.  I did like the spooky tone in issue 3, but issue 4 is just a fight scene.  I’ll see how the first arc turns out.

Captain America #41, Brubaker, Epting, Magyar, D’Armata.  Continued high quality.  Hard to believe that Brubaker killed the title character 15 issues ago, and that there’s so much excitement in the book that one hardly notices he’s missing.  Well, that’s not quite true; I would like to see Cap back, but this book is continually solid.

Doktor Sleepless #8, Ellis & Rodriguez.  As the first book ends, there are revelations galore, not all of which can be taken at face value.  Still, there’s plenty going on; some mysteries explained (though perhaps not resolved) and some new angles revealed.  Lots of words this issue, but perhaps a telling image or two.  I think that Rodriguez’s clean art could be used to greater effect.  The images seem drawn to spec rather than being a result of collaboration, but that may be my poor vision.

Lots of interesting ideas here about what’s sane and what’s real.  Fun stuff.

Secret Six #1, Simone, Scott, Hazlewood.  Whee-ha this was fun: it’s everything Gravel isn’t.  A cast of dysfunctional but strangely likable villains stumbling toward some kind of team/family bond, an eerie opponent, and an impossible jailbreak on the horizon.  These are genuinely broken people, but you can’t help but root for them as they feel their way through life (and perhaps toward each other).  It helps that the dialog is whip-smart and that the images reveal the minds behind the words. The words and pictures make these people sympathetic and real, even though they’re not admirable. I’ll be back to see how they do.

Reviews of Halting State, The Red Badge of Courage, and How To Lie With Statistics are up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

My capsule review of Nancy Isenberg’s Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr is posted on Bell, Book, and Candle.