Congrats to ADDTF for one solid year of reading comics naked.

Also, welcome back ADD and In Sequence.

Did I miss anyone?

 
Better late...

I had every intention of posting during the holidays, but it turns out that my blog is not accessible from certain areas of the Niagara Region.

My holidays went off without a hitch, despite the lengthy, and unnecessary, travelling. I received many a comic related treat, mostly through some amazing boxing day sales. Here's what I have to read for the New Year. The first six Astro Boy trades. I've only read the first one so far, but it is astounding. The artwork is so animated that I can't help but see that it's going to influence my schoolwork. I especially like the little cartoon introductions by Tezuka at the beginning of each story. He could have probably done an entire comic just about himself and I would be entertained. What a well-designed self-portrait. I also got Hellboy - Conquerer Worm, which will be the focus of the next Horribly Pretentious Two Person Comic Book Club. And Crisis on Multiple Earths, the latest Catwoman, Gon Swimming, The Beauty Supply District, The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told (Toth!), an issue each of Draw and The Comics Journal, and the Man in the Ceiling. In addtition, my mom brought some comics back from Ireland, which was really sweet of her. And my brothers gave me a copy of the movie Ghost World. They also gave me lego-style action figures of Captain Kirk and the Gorn, but the less said of that, the better. I'm working on my paper-mache boulder for the Gorn as we speak.



I have no best of list for the blog, largely because I rarely read anything as it comes out. As an example, my favourite read of the year was "Hey, Wait...", which came out previous to this past year. I'm always running behind.

Onward!

Personally, this next bit is pretty exciting news. Egon Labs reports that the Harold Gray ghosted strip Little Joe will be collected and made available on CD-ROM. Samples, beautiful samples. I'm pretty dead set on comics collections on disc, but hoo-boy, I'm willing to toss my ethics aside for some more Harold Gray. Besides Barnaby, this strip was one of the highlights of The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics for me. I love Western comics, and a Western by Harold Gray is just superb. For those who aren't familiar with Gray, he was the cartoonist of Little Orphan Annie, one of my favourite comics of all time.









posted by Steven at 3:50 PM