The Walking Dead Issue 105-108

I am seriously behind in the Walking Dead. Okay when I say seriously, I mean 4 issues. I was not sense that I'm a whole year behind.. like Buffy.. which I have decided to stop reading, but that's another post.

Anyway, I'm all caught up for now. Wow. They left a few cliff hangers in the issues, like always. You will not be disappointed with these 4 issues. They are fantastic. I do really like the protagonist in this storyline. Negan is an awesome nonsensical character. I shouldn't say nonsensical. He does have an agenda, a self-ish one but to me, that's pretty nonsensical. He's out for himself and he's taking advantage of a whole lot of good people.. yeah so.. he's a socio-path? Okay, socio-paths make the best villains because you can't reason with them. Even though it appears Rick is trying to reason with Negan, he has a calculated plan to take the mother-fucker down. I love how the writer makes use of Rick's son in these issues. He drives the story on while providing riveting action! Man... wish I could write like that! I don't want to spoil anything.. I hate spoilers so for the most part, I try to abstain or give fair warning.

Sweet Tooth : Unnatural Habits Volume 5

by Jeff Lemire

Well I waited 4 months to get this at the Library and god knows how long it'll be before I get to read the final volume which isn't out yet. I am hunting down the final single issues so I can finish it. I've found 4 of them but am missing I believe, 4 more. Perhaps I'll be lucky enough to find them.

This volume hasn't revealed the total secret behind Gus's birth. It did however chronicle an interesting expedition from 1911 that helped to explain some of where the hybrids came from. It mostly blames the superstitions of Inuit religion for their birth claiming that the hybrids are gods reborn. They intend to cleanse the Earth of humanity who have long destroyed nature. Fine. We knew we were headed down this road when we started reading a post-apocalyptic story about a mysterious plague. Apocalyptic stories have been all the rage of the last 15 years it seems. Mostly, I find them a dime a dozen. I would say that Jeff Lemire has taken the most un-believable road to build his story. Yet, I find myself incapable of NOT reading it.

As usual, the female characters serve merely as a plot device for male characters to display their strength. I only hope that the little girl hybrid may be heroic in the end ... in some way. It's easy to overlook her heroism as it is so often over-shadowed by that of Gus and Jeppards' role. However, she is already quite heroic for being such a brave little girl. Does bravery in the face of danger make someone heroic? Even if they are unable to help themselves? I guess people would argue it does not make you heroic but I are argue that it does.

Gyo by Junji Ito

Junji Ito, do you know how much I love your stories?? Seriously, I love Junji Ito comics. They always make me totally freaked and yet feel better somehow...cause at least I'm not experiencing awful body gore no matter how awful things get. HA!

Gyo takes place in Okinawa where fish start sprouting legs and spewing gas, infecting everything around them. It's Junji at his best as usual. The gore is tolerable yet completely grotesque. How does that sentence fit?? Well you'll have to read it and see it. The fish are actually dead by the way. The legs on the fish are machine.. the real horror starts when it infects the inhabitants of Japan.

Read it and see if you want to step into the ocean after...

Mushishi Volume 2

It's not the most compelling manga I've ever read but it has great ideas. The whole concept of the Mushi intrigues me yet, the story lacked character development and meaning. You never get to know Ginko, or any of the other characters beyond the superficial. It's the type of thing I don't care for in comics/manga/novels/stories. I need to get into a characters head. All I can tell about Ginko, is that he is relatively indifferent to the suffering of others. He means to help others but he doesn't seemed burdened by it or emotionally affected.

The story suffers from "monster of the week" syndrome which I don't always despise.  There are tons of Manga/comics where this approach makes me happy and satisfied as long as the over-all story has a bigger, more meaningful plot in the background. However, there is apparently no more volumes published in English for this series. Sadness.

The art is quite typical of serious manga and not un-lovely. However it's not particularly stimulating or original in any way. I recommend reading it for it's ideas but that's about all.

I did really like the last story arc of Mushi that actually imitate humanity. It reminds me of "the body snatchers" and a bit of the old Changeling folk tales from Ireland.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei :The Power of Negative Thinking Volume 1

by Koji Kumeta

The humour in this manga is right up my alley. It totally repeats itself and points out silly things that annoy you with other people... well I should say, silly things that annoy ME with regards to other people. It has that kind of observational humour that I really enjoy. It's chalk full of social commentary.

The story is about a young teacher who is basically the most negative person in the world. His students, made up of a bunch of girls are all weirdly unique are labelled by their individual attitudes & odd characteristics.

The book opens with a young girl stumbling upon a man hanging himself... improperly. She rescues him and then later realizes that he happens to be her new teacher. Of course, the girl who finds him just happens to be the most positive, if not a little insane, person you'd ever meet. She takes a positive spin on everything, even negative thinking, the power of which solves a lot of problems for her classmates. This positive spin obviously annoys Zetsubou-Sensei since he is determined to show his students just how depressing and negative the world really is. There is a particularly funny chapter on how no ones dreams are going to come true.

I found this manga to be very refreshing since I haven't enjoyed a whole lot of manga recently. I'm halfway through the second volume and I'm going to have to keep reading this.

Y The Last Man: Safeword Volume 4

by Brian Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr.

Oh Yorick, you've been trying to get yourself killed this whole time? and it only took a BDSM, whip wielding dominatrix to break you? To make you see you had a death wish all along?

 

So yeah, "Y the Last Man" is action packed fun and sadly, I have to wait a while to read the 5th book. Such is life. I ordered it from the Library duh. I'm in a line-up for it. 

I do not want to spoil any of the story so I think I'll leave this as a review that simply says "This book is awesome so fucking read it".

Mushishi Volume 1 by Yuki Urushibara

According to the Urban Dictionary, Mushi means Dragon in old Asian language but of course it fails to specify what Asian language. *eye roll*

Mushi in this book refers to a supernatural being/spirit/thing/whatchamacallit that has been around since the dawn of time. They cause all kinds of horrible afflictions to humans however. The lead character Ginko is what it's known as a Mushishi. A sort of monk who travels around dispelling Mushi from the bodies of humans. There are different kinds Mushi. So the bodies haunted by them suffer all kinds of different symptoms like horns growing out of  their foreheads and overwhelming voices of the Mushi from all over the world. 

This was labelled as a horror manga at the local library which is stupid because it's really not scary or graphic. hmm. It's labelled for 16+ readers, but I didn't really find anything explicit. 

I have volume 2 and I'm gonna read it despite not finding the first one very compelling. As far as I can tell there are only 2 volumes but there is a 26 episode anime based on the stories.

American Vampire Volume 1

by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque & Stephen King

The story follows Skinner Sweet, a unique vampire who moves around the american mid-west from the 1800's to when??? the present day? The story has made it to the 1920-30's. 1928 to be exact. I say that Skinner is unique in that he can walk during the day time.

Chapter 1 is awesome. It pretty much sold me as it introduced Hattie, a soon to be unique vampire. I'm not going to ruin the rest of the plot but god damn it was pretty obvious what was going to happen to her.

I am going to read more of this series. I love Rafael Albuquerque's art. I have read a little of this and that he has drawn for. However, some of the largely busted women kinda make me annoyed. I should be use to it by now.... anyway. I like the sketchiness LOL. I like sketchy drawings. ANYWAY...

So far a big fan and I hope I'm not disappointed. I really do like Hattie's character. She's a much better female character than offered by most comics...even Vertigo ones. I'm also very curious about Felicia... (I won't spoil the story)...