Crouching Vampire, Hidden Bloodsucker

Vampires are all the rage now, as we all know. Thanks to the Twilight books, the movie version of the first novel in the saga, and the HBO True Blood show that's based on the Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series, vampires are cool. And now we get Blood: The Last Vampire, a movie based on a manga that looks like a cross between House of Flying Daggers and Bloodrayne. Anyway, check out the trailer, and let us know what you think!

Chicas

Un par de mis niñas de octavo me pidieron que les hiciera un dibujo, y como suele pasarme en estos casos, tuve cierta dificultad para negarme. El problema es que querían que las dibujase a ellas, y por más que les dije que no se me da bien sacar parecidos o hacer caricaturas, las chicas insistieron en que lo hiciera. Les pedí que me dieran varias fotos para poder hacer el dibujo, y me mandaron tan solo una en la que salían las dos, con lo que no es que tuviera demasiado material de referencia precisamente. Al final, el resultado del encargo lo tenéis acompañando estas líneas, y como no podéis saber si se parecen o no, tendréis que fiaros de mí cuando digo que "tienen un aire". Las niñas se rieron y, aunque les gustó, pensaron que el parecido era inexistente. De todas formas, y, como siempre que intento hacer retratos o caricaturas, fue un ejercicio interesante, así que supongo que podría haber sido peor. Enjoy!

Surrounded by Morons

I enjoyed this movie by Mike Judge so incredibly much I have to recommend it to everyone.
The basic premise of Idiocracy is that smart people are not having kids but dumb people procreate like rabbits, which is not far from the truth, if you ask me. After that has been established, we meet Joe (played by Luke Wilson), an army guy who is asked by the military to test their brand new hibernating technology. Joe is supposed to be frozen for a year, but for a variety of reasons he ends up sleeping for five hundred years. Joe is a completely average guy, but when he wakes up in the year 2505, he discovers a very unsettling truth: he is by far the smartest person on the planet. From there, hilarity ensues.

I could mention a hundred jokes that made me laugh, but instead I'll just tell you to rent this scathing satire of our idiotic society and have a blast. If you like it even just half as much as I did, you'll still have a pretty good time.

Comics, Hotties

It turns out that Megan Fox wanted to be a comic book artist, and she actually knows how to draw. Even better, she is a fan of Witchblade, Fathom, and Gen13, and her favorite artist is Jeff Scott Campbell. Doesn't she sound like the woman of my dreams? At any rate, check out this interview with her in which she reveals all this interesting information. Enjoy!

Portada abocetada

Como siempre hago las cosas al revés, supongo que a nadie sorprenderá que sea ahora cuando me estoy planteando dibujar la portada de Worlds Collide. Si alguien se percató de la ausencia de la misma cuando empecé a enseñaros el comic en abril, nadie dijo nada; pero estoy seguro que más de uno (o sea, mis dos coblogueadores) se preguntó dónde demonios estaba la portada. Bien, la otra noche me dio por ponerme manos a la obra, y éste es el boceto que me salió del lápiz. Tal vez no sea una portada magnífica que te llame la atención desde el otro lado de la tienda de comics (algo que no podría hacer aunque quisiera), pero creo que refleja, hasta cierto punto, el espíritu de la historia: la mezcla de lo cotidiano y lo inesperado, de lo familiar y la ruptura de lo convencional o las expectativas del lector. Ahora sólo me falta ponerme en serio y hacer la ilustración definitiva, pero lo más difícil, tener la idea, ya está hecho. Ya me diréis qué os parece!

Reading List: June

Ah, summer vacation. It’s so easy to read when you have nothing else to do… And to compensate for last month’s lackluster choices, June has been packed with cool books and comic books.

The Sword, vol. 1: Fire
The new series by the Luna brothers is as riveting as their previous efforts (the incredible Ultra and the extremely entertaining Girls). Just like it happened with the aforementioned books, I enjoyed the compelling story and the great dialogue a lot more than the artwork, but the visuals are still good enough. All in all, The Sword is shaping up to be another amazing series!

Avengers: The Initiative, vol. 1: Basic Training
Avengers: The Initiative, vol. 2: Killed in Action
Avengers: The Initiative, vol. 3: Secret Invasion
My friend Brock let me borrow these books written by Dan Slott and Christos Gage, and drawn by a variety of artists. The best penciller is, by far, Stefano Caselli, whose dynamic and incredibly expressive style is nothing short of spectacular. The story itself is entertaining, but I wish more characters that die stayed dead forever. And yes, I understand this is a Marvel comic and people are therefore going to come back from the dead, but I think this crutch is doing the book a disservice, seeing as the premise for The Initiative lends itself to introduce new characters on every issue if need be. Basically, The Initiative is the book in which new superheroes go to boot camp to train and get their license to use their powers. So, if this is the training grounds for superpeople, you can kill as many characters as you want and keep bringing new ones into the book. The KIA story arc is lots of fun, and lot of people die. Then, when you find out that well, all of those heroes actually kind of survived, it certainly diminishes the impact the story had. But maybe I’m just weird.

Proven Guilty
The eighth book in The Dresden Files series, I already talked about how awesome it is here.

Victory of Eagles
The long anticipated fifth installment in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, I wrote about what a great book this is just yesterday.

Harley Quinn: Preludes and Knock-Knock Jokes
Harley Quinn’s adventures as written by Karl Kesel and drawn by the great Terry Dodson are more fun and less silly than I thought they would be. Dodson’s artwork is superb, and he draws a very dynamic, very round (in all the right places), and extremely cute Harley Quinn. Kesel’s stories are entertaining, and I like his alliterations and plays on words. The only problem is that pretty much every character uses both puns and alliterations when speaking, resulting in every character sharing the same voice. I think it would have been better if only, say, Harley, spoke like that. When you have everyone doing the same thing, it just doesn’t ring true. Still, this trade is a very entertaining read!

X23: Target X
Written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, this is the second X-23 miniseries, and it is a lot of fun. Kyle and Yost know how to tell a compelling story and how to write true-to-life dialogue, and when you combine this with the jaw-dropping artwork of Mike Choi and Sonya Oback, the result is a terrific read.

White Night
The ninth book in The Dresden Files series, I already told you why you should read it here.

The Collection
I had already read six novels by Bentley Little, and I was understandably curious about this book of short stories. The Collection features thirty-two tales by the horror author, and I would be hard pressed to find one I didn’t like. The subject matter is usually shocking and disturbing, and even though Little’s prose is not exactly beautiful, his stories pack a good punch, and I couldn’t help but keep reading them one after another. If you like horror, you should check out this book.

The Sword, vol. 2: Water
The second volume of this awesome series by The Luna brothers is more action oriented, as Dara faces one of the big three. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

And that's it for June. Let's see what I manage to read in my travels next month. Probably not as much, but whatever I read will hopefully be as good as what I read this month. Enjoy!

Dark Days

I just finished reading Victory of Eagles, the fifth book in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, and it was a blast.
After the grim ending of Empire of Ivory, which ended with an unbearable cliffhanger, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, so I devoured the book in just a few days.

There are many parts of VOE that are similar to previous entries in the series. There are fights, there's Napoleon trying to conquer Europe, and there are lots of old friends who come back to join the fun. At the same time, there are many parts in VOE that are very different from the previous four books, and those have to do with what happened in EOI, how the cliffhanger is resolved, and what the consequences are for Laurence and Temeraire. VOE is basically the aftermath of EOI, and Temeraire develops a lot as a character in ways that allow Novik to touch on themes such as individual freedom, slavery and forced labor, equal rights, social inadequacies, and justice. If you have read the previous books in the series you know that Temeraire is not your run-of-the-mill dragon, and he even isn't like other dragons in the saga. All those aspects are really showcased in VOE, and our favorite dragon becomes even more interesting than he was before.

Even though this is "the Temeraire series", there is no Temeraire without Laurence, the dragon's captain, a character that my dear Halagan finds slightly aggravating. A lot of what makes Laurence the sort of character he is abounds in VOE as well. He is honor bound, law-abiding, a slave of duty, and maybe just a little bit uptight. This was part of what caused EOI to end the way it did, and because of the very nature of what happened and the very nature of Laurence himself, VOE features a Laurence that is both the same he's always been and wildly different at the same time. This is mainly seen in the way he interacts with Temeraire throughout most of the book, and also in the assignment he accepts in the second half of the story. By trying to stay who he is, Laurence becomes something else, which is an interesting paradox because he is also who he was before.

I realize this sounds rather confusing, but I don't want to spoil anything. Therefore, just do yourself a favor and pick up this series. I know Halagan takes exception to Novik's literary style, and I won't deny her syntax is complex and her sentences stretch for several lines at a time: you've never seen commas and semicolons used this much in a book, I practically guarantee it. And yet, Novik expresses herself with such clarity and with so many nuances and observations about what she is describing that it's almost impossible not to be carried away by her prose. I think her style shows she is a very organized and methodical person, and even though a sentence can be ten lines long, every element is where it should be. She is taking you down a long, winding road, but there are plenty of markers and signals for you to find your way through this world she has created. And what a compelling world it is.