Saturday, March 27, 2004

This sketch is a good six years old. It's one of the first I ever got, and it is the first Aquaman sketch I got. The con I got this one at was a very small con with only a couple of artists, and Jeff Johnson agreed to do an Aquaman sketch on a comic backing board for a small price. He also drew a Green Lantern sketch for my husband. After this con, it was over a year before I got my next sketch, and that was in my Dev Madan's start to my small sketchbook. When I met Jeff again at the Emerald City Comicon, he gave me permission to post this sketch.

AQUAMAN
by Jeff Johnson
19 July 1998
(permission to post given 29 February 2004 in person)
Jeff Johnson Artwork

As a reminder: Almost every sketch in my sketchbook was non-commissioned and done on the floor of a con. These are not the best works of the artists. These are only representative of what the artist can do under pressure in a loud, crowded, and often stressed-out environment. Most of them were done as quickly as possible, to prevent huge lines from forming. Don't judge any of these artists negatively by the artwork you see, instead be as impressed as I am by what they accomplished in far-from-ideal conditions.

To see all the sketches I have permission to post so far, check out my Sketchbook Page. If you have any contact information for any of the other artists I'm trying to contact, please e-mail me. Click for a random Aquaman sketch.

The Saturday Sketch ™ is brought to you by the letters "A", "Q" and the number "27", and also courtesy the fine artists who pour their lives into producing wonderful comic books, then come to conventions only to get asked by geeky fangirls for a sketch of Aquaman. Support an artist, buy a comic book.

by Tegan at 8:07 PM Seattle time

1917: The Seattle Metropolitans became the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup defeating the Montreal Canadiens three games to one in a series played entirely in Seattle.

Note: Be glad the photos of the team are in black and white, as their uniforms were a hideous red, white, and green.

by Tegan at 4:14 PM Seattle time

Friday, March 26, 2004

So hubby-Eric and I have a new appliance in our home. We have a food service, and they allow us to buy extras when we update our order every six months. With our first order we got a freezer, and this order we got an air purifier. It came just an hour or so before the food was delivered, and I unpacked it and started it as soon as it arrived. Less than five hours later, my throat and nose can both tell the difference. We should have gotten one a long time ago.

by Tegan at 5:25 PM Seattle time

Hellboy: The Corpse: A nice re-packaging of this story. The story itself is strong enough to pull people in, especially at 25 cents, and the suppplemental stuff in the back about the movie is fun, if a little thin. Definitely worth getting.

Conan #2: This reads like a classic folk tale, a legend. Which is how it was meant to read, yeah. The art is still amazing, and I really like the bits in the back that tell the story of Conan's creator. Pure fun fantasy.

Common Grounds #3: If you like Astro City, you probably ought to check this out. It's good on several levels, and the "two stories per issue" format helps. I would love to see this as an ongoing, even as a bi-monthly. While some people may not be confident in the anthology format, with different artists on each story, I've yet to be disappointed. In this one, I thought the first story was stronger, probably because of the Jewish character, one of the few times I've seen such a character portrayed so sympathetically. Usually the story would play up his differences in a negative light, in this story he explained them and the conversation moved on. It was refreshing. Go on, get this. Then let me know what you think.

Still to review: nothing from this week, except for my Flipping Through Previews post. Next week's comics (from the preliminary list): Avengers/JLA #4 (I held this in my hands from the retailer preview pack, it will be here next week), Arrowsmith #6, Usagi Yojimbo #74, Green Lantern #175, and JLA #95.

by Tegan at 1:44 PM Seattle time

Happy Birthday to my nephew Tristan! May it be a good one!

by Tegan at 8:04 AM Seattle time

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Go look at this awesome "mod" for a keyboard and box. Be sure to read the details on how he did the project, there's a lot of pictures and it's just massively cool.

Here's another good comic book related blog: Salgood Sam. We need more comic book artists to do blogs. Like Jeff Parker, Steve Lieber, or even Fred Hembeck. Via Flat Earth.

Everything else I found was political, and I think you've had enough of my political opinion for the moment.

by Tegan at 9:18 PM Seattle time

Birds of Prey #65: Uh-oh. Getting confusing again. Some of these issues stand well alone, some of them require a re-read or recap of the previous issue to understand. This is one of the latter. It's a good enough issue, but hard to get into.

Outsiders #10: Hmmm. I wonder if Tony Isabella has seen this yet and started screaming? Anyway, pretty good story overall. Nothing really special, but nothing too bad, either.

Wildguard #6: Wow! None of my votes got in, but that's ok, as I think the team that resulted is a strong one. I'm looking forward to the next mini-series, especially if Todd continues to bring in other heroes in supporting roles. The villain of this issue was a good choice, IMHO.

Still to review: Hellboy: The Corpse, Conan, and Common Grounds.

by Tegan at 10:35 AM Seattle time

So, here's the last word for the moment from me on the 9/11 commission and their eighth public hearings that were held this week.

It's pretty clear from the statements that have been made public that very little could have been done to prevent the attacks, mostly because the administration as a whole didn't expect anything like it. Yes, there were lots of warnings and such that something might happen, but no one really believed an attack like 9/11 could happen in the United States.

That's not to say that the attacks could not have been prevented. It's become equally clear that they could have been... but the same forces that kept the administration from believing that the attacks could happen kept them from acting on the information they had. In other words, it looks like it was a deep institutional problem within the government. The murderers of 9/11 were not all-powerful supermen, but instead benefitted from an institutional lethargy of our government.

Now, I haven't got access to all the secret files and tons of information that the panel has, but from reading the documents at the commission website, that's the armchair quarterback conclusion I've come to. The panel is there to get to the bottom of those problems in the government, and make sure they don't leave us vulnerable again.

Who is to blame for the attacks? That one is easy... the blame rests solely on the murderers who carried it out. The government failed to protect us, yes, but that doesn't mean they are to blame. I don't blame Bush or Clinton, though I think both of them were victims of the lethargy and none of the Presidents over the last couple of decades have even come close to being a good leader. Indeed, I don't think this county has had a good leader in my lifetime.

All of that is irrelevant. The panel will hopefully come up with some good suggestions on how to improve our security, and future plots can be avoided.

In the meantime, the amazing public testimonies are available to the public via the C-SPAN website. The links are on the main page, or in their video archive. Full transcripts will be available at the commission website eventually, also.

I'm very interested in seeing the final reports from the commission. It ought to be a pretty big slam on everyone in national security.

by Tegan at 8:56 AM Seattle time

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

I couldn't wake up in time to watch Tenet testify, but I did see a lot of Berger's testimony. Berger was plainly uncomfortable, and didn't do too well for himself. I'm now watching Richard Clarke, who started with an apology to the families of the victims of 9/11, unlike everyone else who started with long rambling speeches about what they did. Clarke simply said, "we failed" and apologized. Very interesting.

Oh yeah, the panel also took more time during Berger's testimony to criticize Condi Rice's refusal to testify.

If you want to watch this, go to C-SPAN's website. It looks like CNN.com also has a feed up so people can listen or watch.

Update 11:30am: James Thompson is asking the question that is the big one in the blogosphere: the August 2002 memo versus Clarke's book. Clarke said they were both true, then implied the memo was less correct because he was saying what the president had instructed him to say. Thompson asked then if Bush had told him to lie, and if Clarke had lied. Clarke responded that he "highlighted the positive aspects of what Bush had done" while playing down the negative aspects, and that he did the same thing for several presidents. The audience laughed at that, and now Clarke is replying to detailed questions about the memo from Thompson. Fascinating stuff, kiddies!

Update 12:01: "By invading Iraq the President has greatly undermined the war on terrorism." - Richard Clarke

Update 12:15: 9/11 Commission Website, I'm presuming that transcripts from these hearings will eventually show up there. Clarke is now answering questions from Roemer about the planeload of Saudis that left the US after 9/11. He says he didn't approve it, but told the Saudis to go to the FBI, and the FBI approved the flight. He also confirmed that the flight happened during the grounding.

Update 12:30: Kerrey ripped on FOX news for releasing the August 2002 memo, which he described as a "background briefing". He seemed rather peeved at FOX. Then he said the Iraq war was justified. *sigh*

Update 12:35: Thompson AGAIN accuses Clarke of lying for Bush, and Clarke says: "I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a question of politics." Much applause. Apparently everyone in the room except for Thompson understands politics.

Update: 12:45: Clarke finished testimony, and got a HUGE round of applause. I suspect his opening remarks alone made for that. No one else involved during 9/11 has ever, to the best of my recollection, apologized for failing to protect the nation. I think I'm going to skip the final testimony for today. I got comics to get, and I didn't sleep at all last night. I want a nap.

by Tegan at 10:40 AM Seattle time

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

The blogs that have a "*" next to their name over there on my sidebar just are blogs that either don't have, or I haven't yet found, an RSS feed that works on Bloglines for them. Yeah, I'm doing the Elayne thing. heh.

If you think your blog is unfairly asterisk'ed, or you know of a feed for one of the blogs that are so marked, let me know. If you are using Blogspot, you can turn on the Site Feed by going to "Site Feed" in the "Settings" tab. Then just take that URL and post it on your blog and everybody will put you in their RSS thingys and be happy.

I'm actually reading a whole heckuva lot more blogs using Bloglines, so my blogroll might be expanding a bit in the future. I recommend Bloglines to anyone who is curious about RSS feeds. Just go and look, especially if you read a lot of blogs on a daily basis.

by Tegan at 8:54 PM Seattle time

So I downloaded the latest beta of Mozilla because I was told it was much faster than the last build, and speed is something I love on-line. 99% of what I've tried on it works great, but there is one really annoying bit. When I go into Blogger to write a new post, the editing field doesn't show up properly.

Now, I'd report this as a bug, but a) I don't know if it's really a bug or a coding problem on the part of Blogger and b) I don't know exactly how I would go about reporting it. I mean, saying "The editing field in Blogger doesn't show up properly" wouldn't help worth a fig, but I'm not sure I could decipher the code enough to figure out what is wrong. It would appear to have something to do with frames, but I can't tell for sure.

Anyway, the beta is faster, but not so much that I notice a major improvement. I would go back to whatever I was on last, but I installed the beta in my regular directory (I know, I know) and I didn't keep a copy of the older build. Ah well, maybe I'll just keep up with the latest builds for awhile and see if the problem gets fixed.

by Tegan at 6:32 PM Seattle time

C-SPAN is currently showing the public hearing portion of the September 11th commission. It's interesting to watch people trying to dodge questions, particularly Colin Powell, who completely avoided answering the last question I saw asked of him by repeating what he'd said before with little variation. The folks on both sides of the questioning are masters of evasion, so it makes for amazingly compelling TV if you can stand to watch it. I've also seen members of the panel repeatedly ask that Condoleezza Rice come and testify, even giving precedents to defeat the arguments against her testifying.

Anyway, if you want to watch people evading answering straight questions, go turn on C-SPAN. Doesn't matter which side of the argument you believe, this is some heavy stuff.

Update: I spoke too soon. Looks like they are moving the coverage over to C-SPAN3 after an hour break, which means I won't be able to watch it anymore as I don't get C-SPAN3. Had you asked me yesterday if I would be interested in C-SPAN3, I would have said "not at all". What a difference a day makes.

Another Update: C-SPAN.org has streaming video and audio. It comes over poorly on my machine, but I can at least follow it.

Update 11:30am Pacific: William Cohen is testifying, and just brought up "Wag the Dog" and the accusations against Clinton regarding his attacks on Saddam.

Update 12:30: Cohen finished and Rumsfeld and his posse have entered and Rumsfeld is starting his opening remarks. I didn't intend to blog this live, but the other events I was hoping for didn't happen so I'm a lady in waiting, and watching the testimony via the 'net.

Update 1:40: Rumsfeld has been called on his comments at the beginning of his opening remarks that he had never at any time considered the possibility of planes being used as weapons. Ben-Veniste has listed the tons of evidence that the panel has come up with that the possibility was known about in intelligence circles. Either Rumsfeld is an idiot who refused to listen to his people, or he's lying. Further update: Rumsfeld has confirmed that he refused to listen to his people.

Update 2:15: You can hear the anger in Wolfowitz's voice as he discusses Clarke's book.

Update 2:25: It appears to be over for the day. Testimony starts again 8:30am tomorrow Eastern Time. If I can wake myself up, I may just have to watch. Clarke is due to appear before the panel tomorrow, and the panel wants Condi Rice to show up also. It will be shown on C-SPAN3, so I'll have to get my computer to stream it again.

One Final Note and then this Blog Entry is done. Looks like C-SPAN will be replaying the whole morning's testimony tonight after they show the House session. You can catch that starting at 10:30pm if you are on the east coast. I think I'll be watching pre-season baseball instead. It's also being shown a little earlier on C-SPAN2... at least parts of it. Here's C-SPAN's Schedule.

by Tegan at 9:24 AM Seattle time

Monday, March 22, 2004

Anne McCaffrey has a special place in my heart. Not just her books, but Anne herself. Her books saved me from myself when I was a teen, as I could escape into Pern when real life got to be too difficult. I dreamed of having a fire lizard, but worried that it would eat all the local cats. And Anne is the first author that I specifically went to a book signing to meet.

I still have my copy of Dragonflight, with the original green cover of Michael Whelan artwork, with her signature and "To Laura" on the title page. When she asked who to sign it to, I promptly replied with my full name, but she said, "Just your first name, I'm afraid. My hand doesn't get tired unless I do last names." She was tired, signing over and over, and I was a kid who was probably technically a little young to read her fiction, but there I was. I asked if I could hug her, and I got a hug from my favorite author right there in the store. It was nearly two decades ago.

I remember the length of the line. The man in front of us held a strange piece of cloth in his hands and no books. We got to talking with him. He said that he had been in Vietnam, and his unit had a reader in it who loved Dragonflight, and the unit took the name "Dragons" from the books, and each unit was a different color dragon from the books. He said every man in that unit made it home alive. He had come to thank Anne for giving them her luck.

Pern is still one of those series that I cannot resist. I hope Anne and her son continue to write more stories, and I hope Pern continues for a long time from now. I think my review of Dragon's Kin indicates that I'm still interested in returning to Pern. And now, some rapid reviewing.

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey: It's almost unimaginably difficult for me to review a book that I first read when I was 12 or 13 years old. I've heard that Pern is a series that you either hate or love. I've only met a few who would admit to being somewhere in between. I'm not sure where the hate comes from, but the love is from an amazingly planned out world with a long history. It's not fantasy, but it's not hard science fiction, either. I suppose science fantasy works, if you must give it a genre. The first book is about Lessa, a woman who's family was murdered when she was a girl, whose only goal in life was revenge on the murderer. To her surprise, once she's attained that revenge she finds that there is much more for her to do. Including solving a 400 year-old mystery. The story moves along impressively, hardly stopping for breath. Events tumble into events as problem after problem is met and dealt with. The characters grow in front of you. In short, it's just about everything you could want a book to be.

Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey: The second book of Pern is a little more scattered than the first, introducing new problems and a whole bunch of new characters. While it's good enough for a sequel, it suffers a little from sequelitis as well as from the writer trying to cram as much information about the world in as possible. This book introduces fire lizards, the smaller cousins of dragons, and the grub, a second line of defense against the threats from the skies. The themes in the book are interesting, and it moves alone well enough, but it does cover a lot of territory.

The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey: While technically the third book in the series, the reading order on Anne McCaffrey's website suggests that readers read the first two books of the Dragonsinger trilogy before starting this book, and the third book of that trilogy after reading the first two chapters. It's fairly important that you have an idea of the events in the trilogy before reading this book, although it's possible to read it without that knowledge. Like Dragonflight, this book focuses on one character, this time Jaxom of Ruatha who was born in the opening chapters of the first book. Jaxom is a lord, but he's also a dragonrider, and this book is about how he reconciles his dual standing, unique on Pern. This one is a good read because it also indicates where the series is going, as the events at the very end of the book show. Not as good as the first book, but certainly a strong story.

by Tegan at 9:54 PM Seattle time

Blah. Must get taste of politics out of my mouth.

So, just downloaded this week's shipping list and was happy to see some things added from last week's pre-list. I'll be getting: Wildguard (final issue!), Conan, Birds of Prey, Outsiders, Common Grounds, Previews, and the Aquaman's Guide to the Oceans book from DK publishing. It's going to be a fun week for comics.

Chris Brown has finished most of his Wizard World LA reporting: Day One, Day Two, and Day Three. His report about Aquaman was a talk with Bob Wayne, who "said that sales are picking up on Aquaman with the new creators on the book, and plan on keeping them around." Excellent! Chris also got a "furry" Aquaman sketch from Silent Forest artist Tiki Soma, which I'm looking forward to seeing on his blog.

Elayne Riggs points us to the Six Patron Saints of Graphic Design.

Johnny B has his weekly comic book reviews up.

Some parts of the comics blogosphere flared up in temporary annoyance when Marvel's solicits came on-line and one of the mini-series solicited is entitled Identity Disc. The reason this annoys? Because DC is pushing a much-hyped mini-series starting the same month called Identity Crisis. Rumors are everything from Marvel ripping off the plot (doubtful) to tweaking the title at the last minute just to irritate DC (more likely). Whatever the truth is, I'll be getting the DC book, but not the Marvel.

by Tegan at 2:56 PM Seattle time

I've been avoiding the subject, because the gulf between Bush-worshippers and the rest of the world is so wide that it usually seems pointless to try to point out the obvious to the Bushites. But read this, and try to tell me that, if Clarke is telling the truth, Bush shouldn't be impeached immediately and charged with treason against the United States and War Crimes against Iraq.

How anybody can still believe Bush and his cadre of manipulative liars is well beyond my understanding, unless all Bush supporters really are fanatical super-conservative "Christians" who think Bush is appointed by God. That's the only explanation I can see for people continuing to fall for the garbage that the White House spouts daily. I don't like Kerry, but at least he seems to have a sense of reality. Bush doesn't even have that.

Here's some other good links: The Wall Street Journal finally notices that Bush was AWOL on 9/11, Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify under oath about 9/11, Internal Government Documents Show How the Bush Administration Reduced Counterterrorism, and Rummy gets caught in a lie on national TV. How can any Republican tolerate Bush and his friends destroying the credibility of their party, much less support the lying scumbags?

Update: Here's a quote from Bush about when he saw the first plane hit the WTC: "I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card -- actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot."

Ok, there's a few things completely wrong about this statement. One: There was no footage of the first plane hitting the tower until well after the event happened. So unless he had access to information nobody else had, he couldn't have seen the first tower being hit the way he claims. Second thing wrong: He claims that he watched a MAJOR disaster happen live on TV, then went in to the classroom for a photo-op anyway?? What kind of idiot would do that? Third thing wrong: A jetliner hits an office building on a cloudless day, and he says "there's one terrible pilot"????!???? Bush supposedly is a pilot, how can he not realize immediately that something more serious is happening? Is he really that stupid, or was he making a horribly inappropriate joke? Conclusion: whether out of incredibly faulty memory, or out of sheer politicking, Bush lied flat-out about how he learned about 9/11. According to Republicans, lies are bad, and a liar should be impeached. Why hasn't Bush been impeached by the Republicans yet?

Another Update: I've been reminded via e-mail that it is acceptable for a President to lie about matters of national security, but a lie about his private sex life is far more serious and an impeachable offense. You would think in an intelligent country it would be the other way around, but no... Dubya can lie all he wants about what he did on 9/11, who was actually behind the attacks, and what he's doing to improve the economy... but until he lies about who he's sleeping with, he a sacred leader who cannot be impeached.

by Tegan at 9:43 AM Seattle time

Sunday, March 21, 2004

I have updated my Amazon.com bookshop page to include a few more of my reviews. It's not much, but it's a fun little project. My ultimate goal with that page has always been to group reviews of some of my favorite books in one place, so I'm glad to be making a little bit of progress on it.

Many thanks to the people who have bought books through my search box or through the site... there have been far more hits and purchases the last few months than in all the years previous. I may actually get a whole $6 out of it this quarter if I'm lucky! Of course, any money I get through the shop will go to buying myself more books from my wishlist. I can barely wait to read the sequel to Persepolis, for instance, and maybe the credit will go toward that. I don't think I'll get enough to afford Angel, but I can dream...

Anyway, again, thank you.

by Tegan at 10:16 PM Seattle time

Legends - Edited by Robert Silverberg (October 1998)

• Stephen King: The Little Sisters of Eluria from The Dark Tower

  I didn't have to read much of this to realize that I didn't like it. I was trying to read the whole anthology cover to cover, and this story quickly derailed that effort. It was like wading through a swamp. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't for me at all. I read the whole thing, I'm not entirely sure why now, and after finishing it decided I'd probably never read another thing by King again. I was also much less certain about reading the rest of the stories by authors unfamiliar to me.

• Terry Pratchett: The Sea and Little Fishes from Discworld

  I'd always heard that Discworld was my kind of fantasy, but never bothered to get into it. I'm lazy that way. This story proved to me that I would enjoy the humor and probably the characters, but aspects of the writing would drive me bonkers. I can't quite put my finger on what irks me, but something in the writing style doesn't appeal to me. It's minor, however. The story was fun, and funny, enough to make minor irritations mean little. I may just have to read Discworld after all.

• Terry Goodkind: Debt of Bones from The Sword of Truth

  I'm a bit of a naive reader, in that I often don't see the obvious coming. At least, that's what I'm told by my more intellectually advanced friends who always say after reading a story like this, "Oh, I saw that one coming!" Whatever. I did not see the ending to this one forming, and I was quite pleased by the surprises. This is another series I'll have to hunt down.

• Orson Scott Card: Grinning Man from Tales of Alvin Maker (returned in Legends II)

  This is not the first story by Card I'd read, but it was one of my least favorites. Yeah, I like folk-talesy stories, but the characters never reached out to me. I didn't like any of them much. It's a tight piece of work, nicely crafted, but too distant for me to enjoy.

• Robert Silverberg: The Seventh Shrine from Majipoor (returned in Legends II)

  Majipoor is clearly a series I'm going to have to read. As a murder mystery this was far from perfect, but as a layered story telling us about a lot of different aspects of a fantasy world, this was great. I'm definitely going to have to read more of this world.

• Ursula K Le Guin: Dragonfly from Earthsea

  I read the Earthsea trilogy in middle school, and Tehanu much later. I was very disappointed with Tehanu for some reason, though I suspect I would get a bit more out of it if I read it now, as an adult. This story was pretty good, right up until the befuddled ending. I'm not sure what Le Guin is trying to say with her story, though I certainly don't deny her the right to say it the way she wants to. She's earned that much, at least. Still, I almost wish I had some footnotes for this one.

• Tad Williams: The Burning Man from Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

  Yow, this is a freaky story. Sad, even melodramatic, from the start. There are some unanswered questions about the world, though, that might drive me to check out the books in the series. When you think about it, that's the ultimate goal of an anthology like this. How does an immortal die? And what's at the top of that tower? Yeah, this one might just go on the reading list.

• George R R Martin: The Hedge Knight from A Song of Ice And Fire (returned in Legends II)

  A sad but strong tale of a young man who takes up his master's sword and becomes a hedge knight, a knight who travels and hires out his services. The characters came to life on the page, at least the main ones, and the ending hit hard. I found that after reading the story I wanted to read more about Dunk and Egg, and maybe more about the world they live in.

• Anne McCaffrey: Runner of Pern from Pern (returned in Legends II)

  This is the only reason I bought this anthology. Yup, I got it for the Pern story. I knew there would be some other good tales, but I was mostly just eager to read another story set on one of my favorite childhood haunts. This story did not disappoint me. I liked the main character, enjoyed the insight to a side of Pern we hadn't seen yet, and was happy with the nice romance tale. But then, McCaffrey's Pern has never let me down yet.

• Raymond E Feist: The Wood Boy from The Riftwar Saga (returned in Legends II)

  A painful little tale of occupation and murder. The narrator is the title character, and his story isn't pleasant but it is compelling. It's a stong little story, but doesn't leave me with any further desire to read more about the world it is set on.

• Robert Jordan: New Spring from The Wheel of Time

  Reading this reminded me why I enjoyed the Wheel of Time books when I first started to read them over a decade ago. Oddly enough, it also reminded me why I stopped reading them. I want to read the end of this story, and part of me doesn't believe it will ever be written... maybe because there isn't an end. In any case, it was an enjoyable story of the first meeting between two of the most important characters in the series. Maybe I'll go back and re-read the books someday. Maybe.

So, that's the lot. Eleven stories from eleven masters of the craft. Not all of them wonderful, but definitely a good collection. I enjoyed it, overall, and felt that I definitely got value for money. For that reason, I bought the second collection, which I'll be reviewing in the (hopefully) near future. In the meantime, despite its flaws, this collection gets a solid four and a half starfish from me.

by Tegan at 8:23 PM Seattle time

Aunty Sez: "Hey, I just looked at the web issues of "The Interman" and "Whiteout". Both good! I think I could enjoy them. Now, please tell me, Laura, besides the story line, what you like about them? You are right about the art in "Whiteout". It feels cold. Anything else?

And I responded, in the same comments section: "Whiteout I loved because the characters were all very human. Rucka managed to make them human, warts and all, and yet still likeable. Add in Lieber's fantastic artwork which pulls the story along as well as keeping all the characters distinguishable (no mean feat in a comic book sometimes) and you've got one really nice book. Oh yeah, and it had a strong plot too -- I do tend to like mysteries."

"The Interman is a mix of wonderful artwork (those underwater scenes had me wishing Parker would do Aquaman) and a very strong story. Like Whiteout, there's a mystery to be solved, and the reader gets to hang along for the ride."

I haven't really been able to think of more to add since last night. There are adult situations in Whiteout, but it's not like some books that fit the "Sit-coms and TV ads" attitude toward mature situations. If I would compare it to a TV show, I would compare it to the later years of M.A.S.H. And The Interman I would almost call an all-ages book. I don't have my copy to check, but I can't remember anything in it that I wouldn't let a kid see.

Now, I was thinking about free comic book samples on-line, since that's where Aunty went first. I mentioned the samples of The Interman and Whiteout, and I also pointed out Girl Genius, which I've been pushing since I read the first issue - which you can read for free too. CrossGen's Comics on the Web still seems to exist, with 22 free samples. I know DC has put up a few free samples in PDF format... what other comics are out there as free samples? And I'm talking entirely about samples put up by the publishers/creators, not any pirate junk.

by Tegan at 1:06 PM Seattle time