Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “media”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for XIII Tome 9 : Pour Maria, by Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:C’est méchant de dire que cet album m’a été utile pour combattre l’insomnie hier soir ? Bon, c’est exaggérer un peu (n’importe quel livre aurait suffi), mais mes sentiments complexes envers cette série continuent. C’est assez intéressant de revisiter l’Amérique latine, et il aurait servi comme occasion de critiquer le militarisme américain, mais pourquoi donc éléver un Irlando-Américain comme « sauveur blanc » pour ces rebelles ? Je continue à lire, mais je continue à me demander si j’aurais du me mettre à collectionner une autre série de bd.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 8 : Treize Contre Un, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Je reprends donc cette série en lisant les albums que j’ai en format physique. C’est comme avant : J’aime l’art, et il y a des éléments de l’histoire qui m’intriguent, mais ce n’est rien de spécial.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Karla's Choice: A John Le Carré Novel, by Nick Harkaway
- kudos:The book feels like fanservice, but not all fanservice is bad! Dan Moren recommended this at the tail end of a recent episode of The Incomparable, and I was surprised that I hadn’t heard that a new George Smiley story was coming out. In conversation with my partner later, she mentioned that she’d told me when she saw it in the news and that I’d brushed it off. That tracks: I had some trepidation about someone else writing in Le Carré’s world, but it’s quite well done.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 11), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:I think I’m all caught up on TPBs now. It looks like a new one ought to be coming soon, but I might start reading issue to issue, because it’s just that good.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 10), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Strong return to the series after the major twists in Volume 9. It does a good job of continuing the themes of the series while still shaking things up—and continuing to deliver major changes.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Vengeance Most Fowl
- kudos:I don’t think anything beats The Wrong Trousers in the Wallace and Gromit canon, but this could have been much worse as a follow-up to that classic. It’s silly (mostly in good ways), subtly but wonderfully British, and kept kiddo laughing. It’s the best Wallace and Gromit I’ve seen for a while, even if it isn’t as good as the classic stuff.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 9), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Comics do a lot of dumb things to keep readers hooked, shake up the story, etc. When Saga does them, they work. I knew the twists in this episode were coming, but wow did they still land.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 8), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:I say this about a lot of Saga, but this volume in particular shouldn’t be as good as it is. And yet…
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 7), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Sometimes depressing art is the best art, and I felt that way about this volume. Saga is violent sometimes, but it never glorifies that violence, and that’s one of its strengths.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 6), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Like with my first readthrough, I’m noticing that every volume is good, but some volumes are just a cut above. This is one of them. What a series.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Interior Chinatown
- kudos:This was a fun show: trippy, clever, and metafictional. It departs from its source material in plot but not in spirit, which I think is a sign of a strong adaptation. It could have been tighter, and some episodes felt like they were stringing the show along, but overall, I think it was well done.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 5), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Still weird, still grosser than it needs to be sometimes, but still surprisingly good.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 4), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:I suggested this in an earlier review, but there’s a lot in this series I don’t normally tolerate (gore, “will this marriage break up?” plots) but that still somehow works here. I also appreciate how the series pulls off cliffhangers that I actually care about rather than just feeling like they’re obvious.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 3), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:This series moves quick and never lets up on the weird. I don’t know how it so successfully keeps me interested in bizarre characters in bonkers situations, but it does.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 2), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:This series combines dumb and crazy with genuinely moving, and I’m really glad I’ve decided to reread it all.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 1), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:I had been thinking about rereading this for a while, and there’s nothing like a transatlantic flight to get you to finally do it (even though there are two other books I “ought to” be reading. I continue to be amazed that I like this series—and how much I like it. There are so many things about it that shouldn’t work (at least for my tastes), but it somehow goes all the way around and back to captivating.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour Shenzhen, par Guy Delisle
- kudos:J’aime beaucoup les albums de Guy Delisle, et j’avais comme objectif de m’en offrir un lors de ma visite en France. J’aurais préféré acheter « Chroniques birmanes » car je ne l’ai pas encore lu, mais en trouvant celui-ci, je me suis dit que je ne l’avais jamais qu’en anglais, une fois, trop vite dans une bibliothèque. J’aime bien sa façon de parler de son travail, sa vie, et ses expériences dans un seul album.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pour Le français va très bien, merci, par Les linguistes atterré(e)s
- kudos:Ce n’est pas tous les jours qu’on trouve un bouquin en librairie dont on a entendu parler sur Mastodon—surtout quand il s’agit d’un bouquin francophone et qu’on habite aux États-Unis. C’est pour ça que j’ai su que je devais absolument m’offrir ce petit « tract » quand je l’ai vu en visite à Colmar. Et je suis bien content de me l’être offert ! Bien que je ne travaille plus avec les langues, la sociolinguistique a beaucoup influencé ma perspective sur le monde, et ça fait du bien d’en apprendre un peu plus.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 7 : La nuit du 3 août, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Avec l’album précédent, j’avais retrouvé pas mal de mon amour pour cette série, malgré tous ses problèmes. Pourtant, celui-ci (qui sert comme suite directe) m’a encore embêté. Le pire scène de toute l’histoire, c’est ici, quand on montre une tentative de lynchage pour Jones, une personnage qui est toujours capable sauf quand on veut qu’elle soit sauvé par XIII. Répéter des insultes racistes ne me plaît pas beaucoup comme divertissement (même si on veut condamner les racistes), et d’une perspective féministe, le fait qu’elle est en sous-vêtements pendant la tentative est insupportable.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 6 : Le dossier Jason Fly, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Ce tome est encore plus difficile à classer. Comme « thriller », il est assez efficace, les nouveaux personnages sont intéressants, et les petits retours en arrière réussissent à donner du contexte et à accrocher le lecteur. Je continue à aimer l’art aussi. Par contre, le traitement des femmes dans la série devient encore moins supportable. Connaissant quelques femmes qui ont éprouvé beaucoup de douleur à cause de la stérilité, je ne suis pas forcément contre l’idée d’une femme fictive qui éprouve cette même douleur pour des raisons dramatiques.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour XIII Tome 5 : Rouge total, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Je me sens un peu déchiré là. C’était intéressant de voir la fin d’une certaine partie de la série, mais je suis toujours dérangé par les attitudes y présentes. Les personnages féminins dans l’histoire semblent n’exister que pour coucher avec XIII ou subir des menaces de viol. Même si tout cela est insupportable, il est intéressant de voir comment Vance et Van Hamme perçoivent les États-Unis. Quand XIII et Jones se vouvoient, je me demande ce que cela signifie, vu qu’on n’a pas les mêmes moyens de se parler en anglais.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 4 : SPADS, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Bon, j’ai commencé cette relecture en espérant pouvoir défendre mon amour pour cette série malgré ses problèmes. Il est vrai qu’elle continue à être intéressant, mais le sexisme s’accroît, et ça devient se plus en plus difficile de justifier mon intérêt.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 3: Toutes les larmes de l'enfer, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Bon, il y a quand-même des limites à mon amour pour cette série, et je n’ai jamais trop aimé cet album. Même si les éléments des complots se révèlent (et se révèlent assez intéressants), la cruauté de l’asile pénitentiaire où se trouve notre héros pendant l’album me dérange. Même si cette cruauté reflète la réalité de telles institutions, ce qui se déroule dans ces pages est pour amuser, et je ne le trouve pas très amusant.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour XIII Tome 2 : Là où va l'indien, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Dès le deuxième tome, on voit déjà combien cette série va se montrer stupide. On ajoute complot sur complot et identité sur identité. On condamne la guerre au Vietnam mais on fête la violence des militaires. Le lieutenant Jones est un paradoxe en elle même. C’est intéressant d’avoir une femme noire comme personnage important et capable, mais elle reste toujours quelqu’un avec qui XIII peut coucher. Je ne devrais sans doute pas pardonner tout cela à la série, mais j’aime beaucoup l’art, j’aime apprendre le langage de ce genre de BD, et il y a des séries qu’on aime malgré leur stupidité, er pour moi, c’est celle-ci.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour XIII Tome 1 : Le jour du soleil noir, par Vance et Van Hamme
- kudos:Ce n’est pas un chef d’œuvre, et il y a plein d’attitudes des années 80 qui me gênent dans la série, mais j’avoue que j’ai quand-même un grand amour pour ces albums. Ce premier, c’est bien intéressant, même si on a piqué les meilleures idées de « La mémoire dans la peau ». Bref, ça fait un moment que j’ai envie de relire ma petite collection, et c’est donc maintenant que je commence.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, by James Carse
- kudos:I bought this book well over a decade ago. Preparing for grad school, where I expected to study games and learning, I was fascinated by the idea of a work of philosophy that used games as its central metaphor. Well, it isn’t the easiest book to get through, so I made some progress and some notes (most of which missed the point) and then let it drop for a long time.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Liars' Gospel, by Naomi Alderman
- kudos:Some of my favorite stories are those that are big and well known enough that they have invited us to retell them over and over in new ways. This is why I will never tire of new takes on Spider-Man even if I agree that cinematic takes on the character have been rebooted too many times recently (also, put classic Marvel characters in the public domain!). It’s also why, after reading The Future, I was drawn in by Naomi Alderman’s take on the four gospels, writing four stories that barely intersect with each other and barely intersect with Jesus, retelling the gospels in a new way.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, by Douglas Rushkoff
- kudos:Cory Doctorow’s review of Naomi Alderman’s The Future mentioned this book, so after wrapping up the former, I decided to start the latter. It’s not what I expected—Doctorow’s comments suggested the whole thing might be about billionaire survivalist bunkers—but in a good way! It turns out that it’s a broader take on a broader attitude behind survivalist bunkers and the way that attitude manifests in other ways. I had a hard time deciding on a rating for this.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Spill, by Cory Doctorow
- kudos:I listened to the first parts of this as Doctorow was reading it on his podcast; the spacing out between chunks was distracting me and making it hard to follow, so I ultimately bought an epub (harder to download than it should have been) and restarted the story. Then, I took a two-day break near the end of the book—all of this to say that I wonder if I would have liked it even more if I’d read straight through.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories about People Who Know How They Will Die, by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki !
- kudos:This is one of the first books I bought for a Kindle I got in 2010. I don’t know why, but it popped into my head recently and I decided to reread it. Filled with a post-election feeling of wanting to do something amid all this powerlessness, I decided to buy a DRM-free ePub off Gumroad instead of reread the Kindle version, since it was pretty cheap and I want to further reduce my support for Amazon.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life, by Jonathan Alter
- kudos:I am too young (and was for too long too disconnected from politics) to know much about Jimmy Carter except for a vague understanding of the common wisdom that he had been a poor president and of the progressive reclaiming of him in recent years. I’ve had my eye on this biography for a while: I nearly bought it at full price from my local bookstore, but when a used copy was on sale at the library for $3, I knew I couldn’t pass it up.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Agatha All Along
- kudos:This was fun! Interesting characters and stories, and that gets it a lot of credit. Not a lot of it holds up to close scrutiny, though—character motivations don’t always make sense, and plot explanations can feel unsatisfying. Glad to have tried it, though.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Future, by Naomi Alderman
- kudos:This book has everything: critiques of tech billionaires, a crazy heist, and some fantastic riffing on Abraham and Lot that could make it into a sermon one day. I regret not reading it earlier and look forward to my next read of it!
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, by CRC Payne
- kudos:Look, I’m still tired of Batman stories, and I don’t think this series really pushes back against the grittiness and violence that finally pushed me over the edge, but this is as close as you get to “wholesome Batman,” and it’s kind of fun.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Diplomat (Season 2)
- kudos:I still enjoyed this season, but I don’t think it’s as good as the first one. The characters and situations remain interesting, but the plot feels more slapdash and less carefully constructed than it did in the first season.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Batman: Failsafe, by Chip Zdarsky
- kudos:I picked this up because it had Zdarsky’s name on it, and Jorge Jiménez’s art looked gorgeous. It was a fun read, but there are all the problems with it that I have with most modern Batman: It’s violent, absurd, and bogged down in continuity. I’m glad I tried it, but I don’t miss Batman all that much.