This is a shameless attempt to profit off of whatever Spider-Man movie was coming out at the time, but it’s still a pretty fun story. It continues to strain credulity that this kid could keep up superhero hijinks without Aunt May finding out, but it’s enough of the mythos that I can deal with it (mostly).

The first few issues of this are just about peak Spider-Man, and I came very close to giving this full marks. By the end, though, there was too much treating female characters as fanservice—and I have never liked temptation to infidelity as a plot device. So, some ups, some downs.

I finally got access to my spouse’s hoopla password so that I can continue my binge of this series without waiting for my loans to refresh in December. There was a lot that I don’t like about this volume: 2000s language that doesn’t age well, oversexualization of costumes and characters, and crossover nonsense. I like the characters, though, and the issue with Aunt May in therapy was good enough on its own to bump my rating up a heart. On to the next volume!

So, the thing is that I don’t really love the genre of the classic Disney movie, and this suffers from a lot of the issues of that genre. As a somewhat self-indulgent anniversary celebration, though, I think it’s a good homage to the past 100 years of Disney, blending the tropes of the genre with modern sensibilities and interesting animation.

I’ve read a LOT of Doctorow in 2023—including Walkaway twice, Red Team Blues twice, and relistening to Little Brother—so I can’t help but place this hopeful solarpunk novel in the context of these others.

Even though The Lost Cause touches on some of the same themes as Walkaway, I like the latter book a lot better, though perhaps because it feels less “real” than a book about paramilitary Maga Clubs and impending climate catastrophe. Yet Red Team Blues is also more grounded than Walkaway, but I enjoyed it more than The Lost Cause, so it’s hard to say why this book didn’t click with me as some of Doctorow’s other writing.

Rereading this book after a few years, and it continues to be great! The organization could be more clear, and it sometimes feels repetitive, but it provides important historical detail that allows the reader to understand Latter Day Saint priesthood in new ways.

Superhero stories continue to be kind of silly, but this one continues to be fun, so I’m going to keep reading. I’m starting to realize just how little of this series I’ve read, and it’s fun to catch up with things I’d heard about but never actually seen myself.

This volume emphasized some of the parts of the series that don’t hold up, like casual schoolyard homophobia and damseling Mary Jane. Without dismissing those problems, though, there’s still a lot to like here. I have no recollection of this volume, and it’s interesting to get into new territory for the series.

I’ve decided I don’t need to critically analyze these books anymore. They’re fun, I like Bagley’s art, and I think I’m starting to get into issues I haven’t read before. Hooray for hoopla and easy access to this whole run.

There are a lot of reminders in this volume of how dumb superhero comics can be (how is a 15-year old going toe to toe with a crime boss?), but it’s also fun in a lot of ways, and I know I loved reading this when I was a teenager myself. It continues to be a fun series.

I don’t know how many times I’ve already read this volume, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Ultimate Spider-Man. I know the earlier stuff better than the later stuff, though, so I’m hoping to make it through the whole series this time.

I stayed up too late reading this, but it was fun. It’s a bit dumb in parts, but I love the effort to weld together all the major Spider-Man stories into a single lifetime of an aging Peter Parker. I love this kind of comic, the kind that reimagines established canon in interesting ways. Fun read.

I did not read this book as one is supposed to. It’s a collection of daily Advent and Christmas reflections, but I listened to the audiobook well before Advent started and with no pauses in between individual reflections. I’m sure that takes away from the experience, but I enjoyed what I heard and plan to read more Bonhoeffer.

This series continues to have a really interesting premise, and I’m giving it some grace for how much it runs with that premise and treats it seriously. It took me a long time to get through this volume, though, because it’s getting a bit weird and the authors tend to fetishize the American frontier uncritically. I may come back to the series in the future, but not any time soon.

This was an interesting read, and there are portions of it that I expect to come back to later. However, I was surprised by how often I felt like I already knew what was being covered. Given my familiarity with both faiths, I expect that I’m not the target audience (anymore) for this volume.

Comme d’habitude, je suis impressionné par le nombre de bd francophones disponible en traduction chez ma bibliothèque municipale, mais j’aurais préféré lire cet album en français. En tout cas, je connaissais le nom Josephine Baker, mais je ne connaissais pas vraiment le personnage. J’aurai appris beaucoup plus en lisant une vraie biographie, mais une bd, c’est quand-même sympa !

This was a Jason Snell recommendation on a recent episode of The Incomparable that I nearly skipped; I’m glad I didn’t, though, because this was a fascinating book. The premise—that humanity suddenly learns about and how to access parallel worlds to either “side” of Earth—is a fascinating one. In fact, this is the kind of great science fiction that starts with a wild concept and plays with it as long as it can. The plot (and even characters) aren’t as important, and sometimes the book suffers for it, but the concept is so compelling that I couldn’t help but love this. The authors don’t always get Americans, and the audiobook narrator certainly doesn’t, but again: the concept is key, and they do a great job with it.

J’aime bien l’uchronie, et cet exemple offre beaucoup d’idées intéressantes, mais j’avoue que je ne vois pas en quoi il mérite un grand prix du roman de l’Académie française. Si je connaissais mieux l’histoire européenne, peut-être que je serais plus impressionné. En tout cas, c’était assez intéressant même si je n’ai pas tout suivi.

I am only passingly familiar with Archie, but the concept behind the miniseries was compelling, and I love a reimagining of familiar characters to make a point. Even more compelling was the treatment of World War II in a way that emphasized how awful war is instead of cheerleading the U.S. entry into the conflict. Really enjoyed this.

Je dis pas que c’est un chef d’oeuvre, mais ça faisait plusieurs années depuis la dernière fois que j’ai regardé ce film, et on s’est bien amusé, ma fille et moi. Ça donne envie de lire les livres.

In a way, I’m not in a great position to evaluate this book, because I’ve read shamefully little about indigenous populations in the Americas. That learning experience here, though, was a good one. Treuer doesn’t sugarcoat the past, but he celebrates the indigenous present and is even hopeful about the future. I have a lot more to read and learn, but this was a solid start.

I bought this pamphlet over a decade ago, in the gift shop at the Mémorial de Caen. I’d heard that it had influenced the Occupy protests, and even though I wasn’t sure I liked the Occupy protests (in 2012, I was a right-leaning centrist who would eventually vote Romney), I figured I ought to better understand them. I wasn’t sure I liked this pamphlet either when I first read it, but it’s been a while and my political views have marched leftward, so it was time for a rereading. I still feel resistant to it in ways; it feels naïve and contrarian at points, and I’m not gifted in the art of protest. Yet, if it is overly optimistic in some ways (imho, the Arab Spring did not turn out as well as the pamphlet seems to think it would), the need for protest and indignation has only grown. Those aren’t natural approaches to me, but I appreciate Hessel’s call to action—and his historical memory of the French Resistance, which ought to remind us that there are real dangers in the world worth standing against.

I don’t know (or care) much about D&D worldbuilding, and I’m not going to let Hasbro off the hook for their OGL nonsense, but this was a fun movie, and I’m glad I finally got to watch it.

A friend recommended this book to me, and I’m very glad I tried it. It’s a broad consideration of how the Binding of Isaac has been interpreted, imagined, and portrayed over the centuries—combined with the author’s personal struggles with the story. It was difficult sometimes as an audiobook (while I appreciated its breadth, it sometimes felt repetitious), but I got a lot out of it.

I wish I had read this before Gharib’s second comic memoir, because there’s a progression there (in terms of both the quality of art and adding detail to story) that makes it unfair to judge this one after reading it second. I think “It Won’t Always Be Like This” is better, but this comic is so good, too. Great story, distinctive art, great overall product.