The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

Novel

An extremely breazy and uplifting(?) read for being set in WW2 era Germany, there is certainly a lot to be said positively about The Book Thief. From the unique narrative perspective, Death narrates and editorializes, leading to a distinctive prose styling, to the rather moving “traditional” narrative, and probably more things I am not going to list. While all these undoubtably will make it stick out in my mind, after a certain point the prose stylings almost felt overdone, leading to a much less compelling reading experience – although about the same narratively – in roughly the back half of the novel. It is a deeply compassionate novel.. I don’t know what the fuck I’m writing, I quite liked the book but wasn’t blown away like everyone else was, sue me.

East of West: Volume 1: The Promise

Written by Jonathan Hickman, Art by Nick Dragotta

Comic

I don’t know why this Alternate history, science fiction, dystopian, western, four horseman eschatology thing exists or why the art is so damn compelling but I am certainly here for it. I haven’t read much alternate history sci-fi stuff but I really like the particular direction they took this one in, not relying on merely “what if this other side won x war” and instead having an entirely different foundation that I don’t really quite understand in the slightest, but am here for. I previously have read only one of Hickman’s works which also had stellar visuals and worlds, can’t remember the name off the top of my head, but was let down narratively – this doesn’t appear to be the case here. While there are a bunch of mysteries that I haven’t filled in, some defnitely intentional and others due to lack of reading comprehension, the brisk but satisfying character work is what is standing out compared to the prior work. Unclear in the slightest on thematic levels, but it sure isn’t racism which is honestly such a relief in near-ish future/alt-history comics.

Oh I also really like the Sci-Fi Western designs, didn’t relly know where to put that. Never heard of this artist before but he’s great. Will be reading about a volume(~5 issues) a day so don’t expect any updates unless something radically changes my opinion.

Hellboy in Hell

Mike Mignola

Comic Mini-Series

This is it, the final chronological Hellboy series, I think. While there certainly is a case to be made that it has several of the pitfalls that I complained about in ther other series, here it more or less just works. A not insignificant portion of this can be chalked up to the change in setting, I’ll leave it in your capable hands to determine it, and the spectacular art that it allows for. Of course Mignola wouldn’t want to end his flagship series not doing the art, and his return is a triumphant one. More than ever his expressionism is given free reign from the confines of at least theoretical realism, and it’s a true visual feast. I have no idea what the fan reaction is to the ending but I found myself very satisfied on the whole, threads of late wrapped up for the most part and Hellboy’s choices being fully valued.

Great stuff. That’s my takeaway from this series, consistently solid stuff that with a few exceptions has a consistent quality.

I’ll be working through the short story collection volumes, probably will keep those daily updates rolling on those.

Wowie