The Secret Service

I really love the Angelina Jolie/James MacAvoy movie WANTED and was curious to read the original Mark Millar Graphic Novel that inspired it. Unlike the movie, however, it was a very hateful and mean-spirited book that I really detested, making me VERY wary about reading Millar's original comic that inspired the movie KINGSMAN.

Only when I found out that Watchmen artist dave Gibbons illustrated it did I consider picking it up, and when a cheap copy came my way, I bought it.About halfway through and so far very good!

Usagi Yojimbo Vol.33

Was told by the guy at my comic store that this was going to be the last Usagi Yojimbo for DARK HORSE comics and that Stan Sakai was moving his Usagi  series over to IDW publishing. And while Usagi has always been done in the traditional black and white style, apparently the new series will be full color! Something to look forward to. 

As for this last Dark Horse graphic novel, "The Hidden", the clerk also mentioned 'Stan went really hard inthe paint wiht the Christianity angle in thsi one". I remembered he'd done a story based on Christianity before, but this one was an entire story arc, this time instead of a crucifix, tracking down a Japanese-translated Bible.

East Of West Vol.9

Was pretty shocked when Gerg told me he heard that East of West was on its last arc and was wrapping up soon, but things have been building up for awhile in the series and I figure it's about time we get the big explosions!

Judging by the individual issues, I'm guessing there will be one more volume to this series before it ends? Looks like it's gonna be a BIG one!

PS: man, BOTh East of West AND Wicked + The Divine wrapping up at the same time! My tow BIG fave comics series. Looks like there'll only be SAGA left!

Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night

Matt Haig: The Humans

Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Thrilling story of a man named Harry August whom, upon his death as an old man, is discovers that he repeats his lives over and over...with his memories of each life intact!

Very intriguing ideas and crazy scenarios played over the decades of death and rebirth....

Stephen King: 11/22/63

A Time-traveling story with some interesting elements that gets bogged down the same way a lot of these things do: Someone jumps into the past or into the future but all the story is about is their boring-ass romance of "Will you tell her you love her?"...

Seriously, at times it seems like King wrote a book JUST about a guy wooing a woman in the 60's and dumped it right in the middle of the time Traveling story. ZZzzzzzzzz.....

Stephen King: Doctor Sleep

After reading King's latest book The Outsider and really digging it, I thought I'd go back and read some of his other books that I'd passed over initially, beginning with the SHINING sequel DOCTOR SLEEP.

In this book, little boy Danny from the original story is back as a grown up recovering alcoholic, who makes contact with a young girl who shares the same "shining" as he does, and their battle against those that prey upon those with the gift.

In a strange coincidence, no sooner had I finished reading this when they released a trailer for a MOVIE to be released starring Ewan McGregor!!!

John Grisham: The Whistler

"Replay" By Ken Grimwood

Man, just started reading "Replay" by Ken Grimwood and it is so good that I've barreled thru a good 1/3rd of it already!!! The story of a 40+ year old man who dies of a heart attack and wakes to find himself brought back to his life as a 19 year old in college!

With the knowledge of the future, he uses what he remembers to mold and shape his life for the (seeming) better, but will these changes bring him happiness and satisfaction? Such a gripping read to watch him as he wrestles with fate to find success, happiness and peace with himself!

"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!