"Barrier"

Always up for reading anything from Brian K Vaughan and his latest mini-series "Barrier" with artist Marcos Martin intrigued me with its unique sideways "calendar" style book, beautiful art and compelling story of barriers, both physical, social and mental, but after reading all 5 issues, I have to say for the record how I much I HATED the way it ended. Very "clever" but BRAH what a waste of time this ultimately turned into. I'll pass.

Six Wakes

In the middle of the interesting Futuristic Sci-Fi book "Six Wakes regarding a crew of six members aboard a space jumping transport ship who all wake up as reactivated clones...only to discover that they've all been murdered in grisly fashion by someone who may or may not be one of them!

Six Wakes is just one of a bunch of books recommended by booktuber EmilyFox which I've enjoyed- besides being one of the prettiest tubers out there (she also has a sister make-up tutorial blog), has tastes so similar to mine that I don't even have to think twice about picking up books she raves about!

A Horror Classic: Mad House #96!

Though Archie Comics is best known for, well, Archie comics, in the 70’s they also had an offshoot print called Red Circle Comics which focused on their Super-hero stuff (like The Fly and the Original Shield) as well as horror comics like CHILLING ADVE NTURES in SORCERY and MAD HOUSE!

Of the Mad House run, probably one of the best known issues is issue #96 which featured the famous “Demon Kiss” story written and illustrated by master Bruce Jones (most famous at the time for his work on Warren magazine) with a very alluring cover by Man-Thing creator Gray Morrow, and just today I got my copy in!!

VERY beautiful copy, and it might have been even better if the postal delivery service gave any notice of the “Do Not Bend” messages scrawled on the envelope. Unfortunately, they ignored the request and my package came fairly curved. Not too bad, just some stress lines and cracks at the staples, but still… 

The Adventures of Little Archie Vol.1-2

 When I was a kid, I loved those Archie Comics digests, and one of my favorite series in those books was the original "Little Archie" stories by Bob Bolling. These weren't just funny stories, the illustrations were straight out of my storybook dreams, with its tales of kites, clubhouses and best friend Good 'Ol Gangs, adventures with funny aliens, rival gangs and magical mysteries!

Sadly, I wasn't really into the later Dexter Taylor stuff, and as time when on, I forgot all about how much i loved those early stories. But by chance when I was reading up on Dinosaurs, I happened to remember an old Little Archie strip I absolutely loved as a kid, where a friendly witch gives Little Archie the recipe to conjure up a live Pterodactyl into the Riverdale School Classroom!

It occurred to me that while I owned a TON of classic Archie/Jughead/PEP/Betty and Veronica comics, I didn't own even a SINGLE issue of Little Archie! Going onto ebay, I decided to rectify that right away. I didn't know which issues contained the stories I read as a kid in those early Digests, so i just bid at random. In the end, I picked up about 7 of them and waited for them to come in!

In the meantime I was browsing amazon and discovered that Archie Comics had released not one but TWO collections of Little Archie comics! Cursing myself for spending so much money on the original issues when I could have bought the collections for less than 10 bucks apiece, I ordered the two books right away and once again waited for my orders to come in.

In a few weeks, all the original comics from the 60's  came in, and besides them being simply BEAUTIFUL to look at (or, as Bob Bolling would have Little Archie say, Boo'ful), I was delighted to find that no less than SIX stories I remembered from my childhood were in them, INCLUDING the Pterodactyl story! There were, of course, a lot more that wasn't in those issues, and I was crossing fingers they'd be in the trades that were on its way!

Finally my Archie Trade paperbacks came in, and I have to say, it's a good thing I bought those individual comics, because there wasn't a single story inside that I remembered!

Oh, the stories were decent enough (they focused a LOT on the Mad Doctor Doom stories, these I wasn't too interested in even as a kid) but they weren't the ones that I had any sentimental attachment to.

SO! Looks like it's BACK to the ebay auctions because I can now see that by Bolling's art style, all the stories I loved had to be between issue 1 and 22. So far, I've got issues #2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 22 so I'm about halfway there!

Paper Girls Vol.5

First trade Paperback I've gotten of Paper Girls since I dropped the series as a monthly pick-up, and had quite a bit of catching up to do! Even had to go back and re-read some of the issue before to get reacquainted with the series!

Harrow County Vol.6-7

Binging on "The Good Place'

Got the first two seasons of the wonderful NBC comedy drama "The Good Place" on DVD and blasted through BOTH of 'em in a week, just in time to begin watching its Season Three premiere which started last night!

Such a great little show about a self-professed "Arizona Trashbag" named Eleanor Shellstrop (played by the highly delectable Kristen Bell) who dies and is accidentally sent to Heaven instead of Hell and her exploits as she does her very best to keep her true badness a secret as she attempts to become a person worthy of "the Good Place"!

Everyone is great in the show, including William Jackson Harper as Chidi Anagonye, an Ethics Professor determined to help Eleanor find her "nice" self, Manny Jacinto as a rapper-masquerading as a monk named Jianyu, Angelic AI Assistant Janet played by D'Arcy Carden, and Cheers veteran Ted Danson as Michael, the Good Place's cheery overseer.

Ooooh, and special mention MUST be made of Jameela Jamil as the lusciously curvy spoiled and self-centered socialite Tahani Al-Jamil who became my favorite character from the very first episode and has remained my biggest motivation for keeping up with the awesome show!

Just finished watching the first episode of Season Three on the NBC streaming site, and I had to laugh realizing this is the first ACTUAL Television show I've been interested in enough to watch one by one, weekly, as it airs!usually I wait for shows like this to come out on DVD and then jsut binge 'em, but I love the Good Place too much to wait!!!!

So far, this show has kept me on my toes guessing just WHERE each episode is going to lead!!! Such a FUN, innovative series!!!

Monstress, Vol.3: Haven

Femme Magnifique

The Walking Dead Vol. 30: New World Order

Oblivion Song, Vol.One: Chapter One

A few months I picked up the first two issues of Oblivion Song and noted that, while it was intriguing, it would read better in collected form so I decdied to drop the monthlies and wait for the volume trades.

Welp, Volume One just came out and I gotta say this is shaping up to be yet another great Kirkman series, along with Outcast and Walking Dead.

East Of West Vol.8

Starting all over again from Vol.1 before I dig into the 8th volume in the awesome east of west series....

Outcast: Vol.6: Invasion

Things are moving along swimmingly for Kyle and his gang of Demon-exorcising co-horts but I AM worrying that the characters will become just another "Walking Dead" retread as he becomes the de-facto :"head" of his group, complete with headquarters and fences to "keep the bad guys out"....

Hellboy Short Stories Vol.2

Picked this up thinking it was the second book after "Seed Of Destruction", but come to find out I missed  Vol 2 of that AND Volume One of the Short Stories! Doh!

Lazarus: X+66 / Sourcebook Collection, Vol.One

 When Image announced that Lazarus was going on hiatus and was going to be publishing a story called Lazarus X+66 featuring side-characters (and guest artists) in its stead, I wasn't going to pick it up. I was only concerned about the main story and wasn't sure how these side stories would hold up to the greater work.

The  Graphic Novel came out in April (along with the Lazarus Sourcebook), but i didn't pick it up til i happened to be at the comic shop Other Realms with Jas, and seeing both books there on the shelf, I couldn't resist and bought 'em...and MAN am I GLAD I did!

Far from being mere filler stories, these were gripping, emotional and absolutely ESSENTIAL sides to the Lazarus storyline and I enjoyed it so, so much!