I remembered this book being overly complicated and the TV adaptation being far superior. Revisiting it, though, is shifting my opinion. I think the TV adaptation does a good job of streamlining the story and connecting it to the broader franchise, but even if the original plot is convoluted, I think it’s better than I first gave it credit for. I also continue to appreciate Herron’s writing tics and what they add to the story that you couldn’t so in television.

Ça continue à être tout mignon et à faire marrer, cette série ! Je suis bien content de la relire avec ma famille.

This was a delight to read. While the Apple TV adaptation is excellent (I can’t help but imagine the book’s characters as the show’s actors), revisiting this reminded me just how good the source material is, too. Herron likes to play with the audience in a way that a TV show can’t capture, and some of the best lines from the adaptation are taken straight from his writing. What a gem.

Elle est jolie, cette série ! On l’a lue en famille au début de l’année, mais j’ai convaincu ma fille de commencer une relecture. On aime beaucoup les dessins, j’adore le langage (que je n’arrive pas à traduire parfaitement), et j’attends avec impatience le deuxième tôme.

This wasn’t bad, but I just didn’t find it as interesting as the first. I know the whole series is beloved by many, but I’m wondering if I just like the first novella? I ought to keep going to see if persistence pays off, but I had trouble sticking to this listen, so I think it’s time for a break.

I definitely read this one too fast, but if I hadn’t, I probably would have gotten hung up more on the continued blood and gore, which I continue not to like.

As with the rest of the series, though, there’s plenty that kept me coming back, and even the stuff I don’t like is consistent(ish) with the universe that these creators have established. The happy ending is satisfying, the big swings are still interesting, and Eve gets treated better in the final arcs than in earlier stories (though I think they could have done even better by her). It’s a good series, despite my reservations, and I hope it never gets rebooted.

I didn’t realize how quickly I made it through this! I wrote something in my review of the first compendium about the interesting things that Kirkman can do without being bogged down by a broader continuity, and that certainly applies here. I appreciate the big swings he takes and his willingness to shake up the story and leave it shaken up rather than a creep back to the status quo.

I really like the first novella, and this one isn’t bad, it’s just hard to live up to the strong first start. I’d like to continue working on the series, since I know it’s all well regarded, but I don’t remember many of the details from the first time I tried this, so let’s hope it sticks more this time.

I have some mixed feelings about Invincible, though they obviously are positive enough for me to start a full series reread. In college, I used to own a hardcover collection regrouping the first several TPBs, but I gave it away when moving to grad school. I was bothered by the violence and gore then, and now I can add to that the casual homophobia and ableism of the early 2000s and the low-level objectification and misogyny that are in most superhero comics. There’s some not to like in this series.

Rereading this after watching the show is really interesting. In some ways, it raises my opinion of the show, after seeing specific lines and scenes that they clearly drew from. However, as I wrote last night, I also just like the book so much more, and I’m not sure that the things I miss could have been adapted at all.

I tend to overthink media, and one thing I’ve been overthinking recently is whether books and radio are more ethical media than television and film, because I understand the former (perhaps naïvely) as involving less waste of resources for the sake of entertainment.

I bring this up not because I’m convinced by the argument (which I haven’t really thought through) but because the second season of Andor had me back on the side of television, because how else could you tell such a great story as that? Here’s the thing, though: This (audio)book had me mulling over the question again, because I might like it more than Andor.

I mostly skimmed this book, and I would have some quibbles with it if I got more into the details, but I found it really good. Musical theater is far, faaaar outside of my research interests, but this book articulates a fascinating “theology of voice” within Mormonism that will be helpful as I look to write something on Ellul and Mormon Studies.

A relatively short comic with good art and a compelling story. In some ways, I would have liked a written memoir more, but this was a good read.

This took a while to get through for a book I enjoyed so much. It has Andor-level grittiness and complex characters and narratives that make it better than a lot of Star Wars stuff. The audiobook’s use of Star Wars music and sound effects is also a big plus. I’ve already checked out the final book in the trilogy so that it’s not another two years before I wrap it up!

This book isn’t the best of the anarchist fiction I’ve read—it feels a bit stilted or maybe even too didactic at points—but it grew on me, and I enjoyed the story a lot. (It’s also not the worst anarchist fiction I’ve read—looking at you, V for Vendetta). Cory Doctorow mentioned Killjoy’s most recent book on his blog, so I’m giving some of her older stuff a try, and so far, I think it’s pretty good.

Dumb but fun is how I would describe this. It’s got good art and an interesting premise, but the longer it went on, the more tired I got of twists and the harder time I had following the story. It wasn’t bad—but nothing special either.

This one almost won me over. It has good art, and the kind of worldbuilding that goes with an interesting idea rather than explain things. It had a bit more violence than I like and some objectifying art that wasn’t really necessary, but what really lost me was an unnecessary fridging late in the second arc. It could have been something interesting—and frankly still was—but that scene cancelled out a lot of that potential.

I didn’t want to like this. The IDW comics bundle I’ve been working through has been kind of a mixed bag, and this was weird from the get-go. A fast-food employee robs an entire strip mall, which gets him entangled in an effort to summon the devil on earth. It doesn’t sound like my thing at all.

It’s so unashamed of its weirdness, though, that it comes all the way around to amazing. Its characters are interesting, it focuses on a story and doesn’t care about wrapping things up beyond that, and it’s evocative in a way I never would have expected. I like stories that commit to the weird, and this does it—with some good art, to boot.

I feel kind of weird rating this above any of the Earthdivers volumes, but hey. The art feels a bit off sometimes, and there were some bits that I didn’t quite follow. The character designs and worldbuilding were great—weird sometimes but stronger for it. The plot was interesting, with some good twists that kept me hooked.

En fait, j’ai lu Stay, la traduction anglaise que j’ai trouvée à la bibliothèque chez moi. Je n’aime pas lire les BD en traduction—traduire « kebab » comme « gyro », ça se comprend, mais c’est quand-même insupportable—mais je ne voulais pas rater la possibilité de lire une vraie BD non plus,

L’art est magnifique, et si l’histoire est un peu bizarre, elle est touchante aussi. C’est impressionnant combien cette équipe a pu raconter une histoire tellement émouvante avec si peu de paroles.

This is a very Ryan Northy comic, and I mean that as a compliment. It’s a great adaptation of the Lower Decks vibe (and Fenoglio’s art is a fantastic recreation), but it also has a lot of North’s signature moves. I love his physical comic adaptation of webcomics’ alt text jokes, his voice in those jokes, and his fun with science and public domain characters. I don’t know how much more there is in this series, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for additional volumes.

This is a good book, with a powerful thesis and a great epilogue that ties things together. It isn’t perfect, but I think most of my quibbles are related to the subject matter and the genre. It’s hard to write a book about a contemporary subject of such importance, and I think it’s tricky to write a book that combines history with more of a critical take on the AI ecosystem.

Maybe I’m dumb—or not reading closely enough—but I just cannot follow the twists and turns of this series. I love the back of the envelope idea of Indigenous time travelers trying to set things right, but I am very confused by the execution.

This feels a lot like the first volume: great premise, great art, but very hard to follow. Maybe it’s me not paying close enough attention, but it just feels twisty and turny without enough signposts to keep the reader on track.

There’s a lot going for this book: A compelling premise (Indigenous survivors of a climate apocalypse send someone back in time to kill Columbus, hoping that no America will avert said apocalypse), a willingness to interrogate the premise (violence begets violence, can the past be changed, etc.), and great art.

I felt like it didn’t live up to that potential, though. I had trouble following the timey wimey twists, there were a lot of shortcuts, and the dialogue and characters sometimes felt flat. I look forward to the subsequent volumes, though!