Haven't heard of it before, but I'm definitely interested. I otherwise really like Beaton's webcomic, "Hark! A Vagrant." I'm curious to see some more 'serious' work by her.

Hey @mrp! Kate Beaton is speaking at the Portland Book Festival this weekend. She's being interviewed on stage by Dave Miller of Oregon Public Broadcasting for their podcast/radio show Think Out Loud. I'm not sure when the interview will be available, so I'll keep my eyes open for it and post here.

So I completed my quest to read 100 physical recent horror comics last month, I just failed in my plan to post my list daily and write mini reviews. Here is my last day:

100 Horror Comics in 31 Days - Day 31, monthly count 100
Specter Inspectors 1-5

Fun series from Boom that’s sort of a Scooby Doo team for older kids and adults.

Do we have spoiler tags here? Maybe I’ll post my entire list in it just for posterity/accountability.

been on a modern OGN kick a bit this week and last. After finishing Ducks, I read through 5 more OGN.



The first wo were adaptations by Gareth Hinds, first the Iliad, then the Odyssey (though he did the Odyssey first).


I first discovered Hinds in 1999 with his Beowulf adaptation (the only one I believe he has done that was released has individual comics first). In his acknowledgement he talks about consulting with Eric Shanower (Age of Bronze) and others when researching the book. His art style in these evokes the look of the art I've seen on classical Greek pottery, so it's bit different than typical comic art, but these are both excellent adaptations. One thing I liked (and for me it felt like a trick in step with some of the mnemonic devices used in epic poetry) that he did in The Iliad (the more recent adaptation) was work some sort of visual device of a recognizable symbol or sigil using the character's first initial into the armor, shield or helmet of each of the Greek or Trojan generals/heroes to make them recognizable for audience members when depicted in action or battle scenes. In his notes he talks about the pages the Homeric originals spent describing Achilles' shield as an inspiration to make the arms and armor of the characters tools for reader recognition of the characters without having to use text to do so each time they appeared (I guess it's kind of the same cheat modern super-hero artists use with super-hero costumes to distinguish characters-though I will say Hinds characters had more individualized and unique looks to make them stand out and the motifs were more designed to help the reader remember that older guy has an N in his motif so he's Nestor as opposed to that big bulky guy with the big A (Ajax the greater) or the scrawnier dude with the small a (Ajax the lesser). But the motifs were subtle, the N worked into the shape of the visor on Nestor's helmet not emblazoned on his chest like super-hero outfit.


Next were a pair of projects that Jeff Lemire was involved in. The first, the debut of their new horror universe The Bone Archard, with the OGN The Passageway



I generally like Lemire horror projects, but this one was a bit disappointing. I think it's because it was setting up a larger project rather than a standalone story on its own, but it felt a bit unsatisfying. That said, I am intrigued by a lot of what was set up and I still plan on checking out the other stuff set up in this playground.

Second was the sci-fi noir Kickstarter project Lemire co-wrote with Matt Kindt featuring art by David Rubin, The Cosmic Detective...



I think the elevator pitch for this one is something like Chandler meets Blade Runner meets Kirby's Eternals. It features a noir detective/agent protagonist who works for a shadow organization that monitors the activities of an largely unknown to the masses race of beings that are eternal and has done so for centuries, but the detective is called in when one of these beings in murdered and he has to find out how and why. It's a great premise and Rubin's art is trippy and engaging, but overall I kind of felt the execution was a bit less than I hoped for. It might be a matter of my expectations being too high, as I really like the creators involved and was super-hyped by the concept, and it was a good read, but it never quite got to the level I was expecting with everything on the table. Over a year of expectation waiting for it to be finished and for the Kickstarter fulfilment may have contributed to building up my expectations a bit too high as well. Again, solid book, just not spectacular.

Lastly, the next installment for perhaps my favorite thing coming out in contemporary comics-Reckless Book 5: Follow Me Down by Brubaker & Phillips...



If you've been reading the Reckless books, this is another great installment in the series. This one shows what Ethan was working on out of town while Anna's case in book 4 was playing out, but also features an epilogue that jumps to 2004 and show what Ethan was up to then (don't worry, it's not the last Ethan story or Reckless book though the team is taking a break to do another project before they do another Reckless OGN). If you haven't been reading Reckless, why not? It is Brubaker/Phillips at the top of their game doing some of their best work of their careers.


So these have taken up most of my comic reading time the last week or so. I seem to have moved past my Marvel mania that dominated my comic reading for the last year and a half, but that might be just a temporary reprieve as I have a hankering to dive into some more Marvel stuff (I still have one more Starlin Thanos OGN to get to after reading the initial trilogy of OGN before I dove into Ducks, so we'll see).

-M