Scott Pilgrim vs. Comic Book Movies

posted by Chris on August 11, 2010 8:36 AM in Books, Movies

Last night, Jinny and I were able to check out an early screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which if you pay attention to the podcast at all, you'd know we've been obsessing over for the last year or so. No worries if you haven't seen it yet, I'll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The Hype

It took me a little while to get into the Scott Pilgrim books. I was aware of them, but was turned off by the manga style. Or what I thought was manga style. Eventually my friend Wynn wore me down by explaining that I was Scott Pilgrim. I read the first book and was hooked not only by the video game and music references, but by the interactions between the characters. Brian Lee O'Malley was able to capture how people really talk to each other, and I always appreciate that when it comes to comic books. I enjoyed the world he created, full of magical realism and intense action sequences. It was a world I felt instantly familiar with.

When I heard there was going to be a movie made, I was cautiously optimistic. The cast looked decent (Kieran Culkin as Wallace felt especially apt, Jason Schwartzman as Gideon was spot-on and I have no hate for Michael Cera like most people seem to) and Edgar Wright is a director I trust. More news came out about the movie, including artists attached to the soundtrack. O'Malley listened to a lot of indie rock while creating the books and peppered references to music all throughout, so it made sense that people like Bec, Broken Social Scene and Nigel Godrich were involved.

The final book of the series was released and kind of felt lackluster to me. It felt like O'Malley was tired of the franchise and just wanted it to end, and while I was relatively satisfied it kind of felt hollow.

It's the hype that kills things. It's expectation that will lead to your disappointment in things 90% of the time. That's the problem with geek culture today, we expect everything to be mindblowingly awesome. Which is sometimes ok! You should expect quality from the things you consume, but you should also set your expectations. We have this incredibly robust vetting process for determining what deserves our attention, and hype is a big part of that. But I think the hype surrounding the Scott Pilgrim movie left me a little flat.

Here's the thing: no movie based on a book will ever, ever live up to your expectations. If you're an avid book reader (comic books and otherwise) you know that imagination is an incredibly important part of the reading process. We fill in the blanks between panels (for more on this specific topic, I recommend reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics) and have our own ideas of inflection and character voices cemented in our heads. No movie can ever expect to live up to the book you've personalized in your own brain. There are always going to be parts left out, or jokes that you feel should have been done better or emphasized differently. The best a movie based on a book can do is augment your initial book experience in a sensory fashion.

If I were to critique the movie on the merits of living up to the book, I'd say they did a great job. It was a fantastic adaptation. Was it a good movie? Sure. Was it the best movie of all time? Definitely no.

Scott Pilgrim vs. Comedic Timing

One of the main issues I had with the film was the pacing. Edgar Wright did a bangup job on the action sequences, making them kinetic, frantic, and incredibly similar to the atmosphere the comic books created. The fight scenes were a visual treat, like nothing I've ever seen before. The other parts of the film that used comic tropes such as onomatopoeia felt forced. Like they had to incorporate this stuff because, well, it's a comic book movie.

Punchlines and jokes in comic books are processed differently than jokes in movies, as well. Scott Pilgrim the movie was able to replicate a few of the better visual gags, as well as some of the text-based gags (such as the little labels that appear next to characters giving their names, ages and a short sample of their personality) but many of the subtler jokes get bowled over. When you're reading a comic book and you get to a punchline or a visual gag, you're able to soak in the frame. You can sit there and contemplate the joke for an eternity if you'd like. The pacing of the book sets these kinds of jokes up very very well. There is no concept of "blink and you'll miss it" in comics. In the movie, these jokes are not only delivered flatly, they're bowled over by the transition to the next scene. There's literally no way for these jokes to work properly on screen. That said, it was a valiant effort.

The comedic timing of these jokes was off, as well. The comic uses a lot of hyperbolic dialog and reactions to illustrate emotion in an exaggerated fashion. You don't really need to do this in a movie, because you're able to convey emotion a little easier. Scott Pilgrim the movie keeps these hyperbolic reactions, which feels like overacting to me. The entire time I felt like I was watching a high school stage performance of Scott Pilgrim. That's not to say the acting was bad, but the dialog felt stifled at times, and there were strange silent moments that felt forced.

Scott Pilgrim vs. Nostalgia

This is the first real movie meant for people of our generation. We get the references, and they never play coy with them. The references are all right there, down to literally using music and sound effects from Zelda games. It is intimately familiar, and for that it is unique. But for something so lovingly crafted, I felt like I needed more meaning. More emotion. The books were full of emotion. I genuinely related to Scott and felt for him as he pined for Ramona. There was very little of that chemistry in the movie. It was busy being flashy, which is understandable I suppose. The action scenes were set up wonderfully and really felt like a video game. But for all the flash, I miss the emotion.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The Comic Book Ending

The movie was written and filmed before the last book in the series came out. O'Malley was a consultant for the movie and did provide them with some direction on how the story wraps up, but the ending to the movie is completely different than the books. Which was better? It's hard to say. I can honestly say that I didn't feel enthusiastic about either ending. It ended. I am not sure how it could have ended better. The movie also changed a major reveal in the last book which I believe really could have been incorporated, and the movie would have been better for it.

Would I see it again? Probably. Would I recommend it to friends? Not as enthusiastically as I hoped to be able to recommend it. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a completely decent movie with some incredible visuals. As a companion to the book series, it does it justice. As a movie on it's own? It's a strange thing indeed.

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All I want for Christmas is fun.

posted by SecksCab on December 19, 2008 11:14 PM in Books

Among my obsessions is a certain penchant for things biographical, i.e. books, and this year I treated myself to a Christmas present: a biography on Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan revolutionary who chopped off the head of the sitting monarch, declared himself the dictatorial "Lord Protector" and assured, by his death, that North America, especially the colonies that would later become the United States, would pretty much be the chosen end-location for all the world's violently deluded Millenialist religious dogmatists who basically give us exactly the reputation we deserve these days as the global asshats and cockends that we allow to manipulate themselves into office.

Sadly, the days of this particular generation's Oliver Cromwells are waning down, and if you can stand to believe it, we have less than a month left of Republican rule over our spatial area. I understand that non-Americans read this site, but this one is primarily directed at the Yanks.

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The Ravenous Bibliophage - Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

posted by laurel on September 22, 2008 4:24 PM in Books

In October of 2004, I was enjoying the second month of a semester abroad in Merry Old England. East London, to be exact. And by that time, the girl in the flat above me ('flat' is British for 'apartment,' or in this case, 'dorm,') had become by very best friend. Shortly after Hallowe'en, she put a book in my hand and told me I had to read it, I would love it. Now, I should tell you upfront that being introduced to a book this way -- having it thrust on me and being told I absolutely have to read it because it's wonderful and I'll love it -- is not the best way to get me to read it. I'm just obstinate that way. If someone forcefully suggests something to me, my knee-jerk reaction is to do the opposite, or to ignore the request entirely. But in this case, the book was a three-part anthology including Neil Gaimain's Stardust, Neverwhere, and the short story and poetry collection Smoke and Mirrors. Neil Gaiman has been my favorite dark fantasy author ever since.

I've read pretty much everything in Gaiman's collection by now, but Neverwhere is the one that hooked me. It takes place in contemporary London, except that it's divided into two fiefdoms: 'London Above,' the real-world London that we know, and that I came to love while living there; and 'London Below,' the fantastical netherworld that exists just under the surface. The basic idea is that all the vagrants, beggars and street musicians of the city - all the people you'd normally give only passing attention to, before forgetting about them completely - are people who have 'fallen through the cracks' of normal society, and thus become part of this underworld community where 'normal' becomes an idea of the past, and nothing is as it seems. The two Londons coexist fairly independently of one another, but they are linked, and anything that happens in one can affect the other.

Normally what I look for in a book before anything else are good characters. If I'm not emotionally invested in the people in the story, I'm not going to care what happens to them. The characters in Neverwhere are indeed compelling - the two hitmen, Croup and Vandemar, double as legitimately scary villains and a comic relief duo; the protagonist, Richard Mayhew, is a lost everyman who's struggling to come to terms with the surreality of London Below; and Door, a young girl with a unique power and an unassuming personality, is a refreshing change from the damsel-in-distress staple. However, what drew me to this story was not the characters, but the setting and atmosphere. Delving into a fantasy world set in London while I was living there was only half the fun. The other half was the way that this world was realized. If you've ever been on the London Underground (that's British for 'subway' or 'metro,' sometimes called simply 'the tube') then you've probably taken a double take at the odd names tacked onto the stops. Earl's Court? Blackfriars? Hammersmith? They might as well be names for acts in a trippy sideshow. And in this novel, that's not too far from the truth. Earl's Court is an empty train car that's home to the decrepit nobleman Earl, and his long-suffering band of loyal followers. Blackfriars is a monastery of very secretive and elite monks, always dressed in black robes instead of the usual brown. Hammersmith is a giant - here meaning not just big, but a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk type of giant - who works as a blacksmith at the traveling market held weekly by the residents of London Below.

Sometimes I wonder if Gaiman came up with this story purely as result of wondering what in the world was going on with those names. I'm sure he's not the first to wonder about that, and he probably won't be the last. There are real stories behind the ridiculous names on the London Underground, surely. But what Gaiman gave us is more frightening, more whimsical, and altogether more magical than anything we could learn from a history book.

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The Ravenous Bibliophage: The Southern Vampire Series - Charlaine Harris

posted by laurel on September 9, 2008 10:11 AM in Books

HBO's new series True Blood is up and running: a campy, raunchy, unexpectedly hilarious look at vampires in rural Louisiana. I'm not an HBO series watcher in general, but when I found out this particular show was based on the Southern Vampire novels by Charlaine Harris, I became curious. So in preparation, I decided to have a look at the written series first, the better to point out flaws such as bad casting and altered storylines (one of my snobbier traits, born out of Book versus Adaptation elitism) when the show actually went to air. My conclusion: the show is indeed lacking. But the books are wonderfully addictive in all the best ways.

Alternately referred to as the Sookie Stackhouse novels, Harris's homey, supernatural world centers on a young cocktail waitress with the aggravating ability to read minds (sounds like fun until she has listen in on the horny drunks she serves every night) and her relationship with vampire Bill Compton, one of many vampires worldwide who are trying to 'mainstream' - to coexist peacefully with the humans. The Japanese have perfected a formula for synthetic blood, originally intended to be used for hospitals, but a worldwide side effect of this breakthrough is that vampires have 'come out of the coffin' so to speak and, since they no longer need humans to feed, want to rub shoulders with the regular folks and have a shot at being proper citizens.

One of the things I find bothersome about vampire fiction is the tendency to portray vamps as beautiful and physically perfect in every way. Anne Rice is guilty of this too, as much fun as she is otherwise. In Harris's world, there are a few vampires who follow the classic 'tall, dark and handsome' motif, but most of them are refreshingly unique. One is a Texas cowboy, complete with the ten-gallon hat and string necktie; another is a Civil War veteran with a pronounced Deep South accent and old-fashioned mannerisms to match; there's even a self-declared geek sporting pinstripes, thick-rimmed glasses and oxford shirts.

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see the vampire myth brought out of the realm of Victorian Gothic romanticism and into the realm of homespun realism. Although it might not be enough to attract readers who aren't into vampire lore to begin with, it is a fabulously entertaining take on what might actually happen in the real world if vampires existed, and how the general populace would react to their presence. In addition to being a supernatural adventure with tons of humor and romance mixed in, Harris's books are a commentary on racism, homophobia, gender roles, and other civil rights issues that we do actually deal with on a daily basis. Vampires are just another group perceived as something other than 'normal,' comprised of beings who have good and bad qualities just like everyone else.

Read More: Charlaine Harris , Sookie Stackhouse , The Ravenous Bibliophage , True Blood , vampires

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The Ravenous Bibliophage: Brian Briggs, The BBook of Geek

posted by laurel on September 2, 2008 12:00 PM in Books, Geek Culture

Think you know everything there is to know about being a geek? Think again, true believers: Much to learn you still have. But fear not! Brian Briggs has pulled together a truly delightful how-to guide to help veteran geeks, would-be geeks, and geek watchers expand their knowledge of this multifaceted and richly detailed culture.

Equal parts survival guide and good-natured spoof, Briggs's BBook of Geek has it all. Have trouble keeping up with the bloggers and their idiosyncratic language? This book can help. Still don't know what LARP stands for? You will. The BBook is broken up into helpful genre-specific sections such as literature, movies, and gaming, the better to help the well-rounded geek find what he or she needs quickly. Also, for your entertainment, there are countless lists on topics such as 'Top 11 Signs You Shouldn't Board That Spacecraft,' and many (surprisingly difficult!) quizzes designed to test your knowledge of your fandom of choice. Is 'Boss Nass' a Star Wars character or a Hip-Hop artist? Is 'Red Tornado' a superhero or a household cleaner? Believe me, it's harder than it looks.

There is a wealth of information here that will surprise and amuse you, but a word of warning: there are tongue-in-cheek 'facts' interspersed among the real truths of geekdom. (Example: "LOLcats can be traced back to ancient Egyptian drawings of cats with hieroglyphics that roughly translate to: 'I can haz pyramidz?'") And let's not forget the hilarious newspaper clippings with titles like "Blizzard Selling LifePacks for Scheduled Downtime in World of Warcraft," and "Thirty-Two Arrested in Poorly Conceptualized LARP."

The only complaint I have about this book is that it left me with an unavoidable sense of how little I truly know about geekdom in general. My own geekiness is confined to a spare few areas that I know way too much about--I'm not what you'd call 'fluent' in Elvish, but I can tell Sindarin from Quenya when I hear it--but my knowledge of gaming and comics is sorely lacking. And to that end, I'm glad that a guide exists to help fill in those gaps, at least a little.

It's a rare person indeed who can convey a genuine affection for and kinship with a given culture at the same time that he's shamelessly harpooning it, but Briggs pulls it off. Even if you have trouble separating the real facts from the clever jibes, chances are you will learn something new, and laugh your head off doing it.

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The Ravenous Bibliophage: Stephenie Meyer - Breaking Dawn

posted by laurel on August 26, 2008 9:02 AM in Books

Please welcome the newest addition to the Weekly Geek family, Laurel Fuller. Laurel will be writing The Ravenous Bibliophage - a feature not afraid to tell you what books are crap and why. Enjoy! --Chris

We've all seem them in the window as we walk past Borders or Barnes and Noble. The flat black covers with the striking red-and-white imagery, wrapped around a set of (now) four novels as thick as the later Harry Potters. They are the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer's wildly successful vampire romance aimed at teenagers and whoever else gets the urge to read Young Adult books every now and then. I started reading them because A) I like vampires, and B) I want to write fantasy-horror for a Young Adult audience one day, and I felt like sizing up the competition. The good news is the series is finally, finally over; the bad news is I vaporized a solid two months reading every word.

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American Nerd: The Story of My People

posted by Chris on July 7, 2008 8:53 AM in Books

Self-flagellation and guilt are two major personality traits of Geeks. A common thread in our lives is the self-hatred that comes from being told you're different than the other kids - in a bad way. Your glasses or ill-fitting clothes are wrong, your bookish manner of speech unwelcome to other "cooler" kids. We retreat to comfort, to rules and structure in a seemingly chaotic world. Thus is the thesis of Benjamin Nugent's American Nerd: The Story of My People, a book not unlike Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion for its logic and prose. Being a self-proclaimed Alpha Geek, I am always protective of my community. The mainstream view of geeks has classically been a negative one, only recently have we seen the rise of Geek Chic, the ultimate revenge. Our glasses are in style, tight thrift store shirts and beat up clothes are coveted, and our hyper-literate manner of communication welcome to prospective employers. We are, of course, a deeper people than this. We have developed a bond with other Geeks in order to ensure our survival and are protective of the shelter cobbled together with stacks of Monster Manuals and empty jewel cases. We are varied in our interests, tied together by passion alone. Misunderstood passion validated by the niche communities we affiliate ourselves with.

When I saw American Nerd was penned by the same author of Elliot Smith and the Big Nothing, I imagined a sort of Geek ambassador, a man who Knew What He Was Talking About. Elliot Smith being the ultimate Geek, one so tormented by his isolation and obsession with his craft. So misunderstood. His biography sheds insight into his otherwise isolated thoughts, so surely Nugent had the prescient ability to understand geeks, to explain them to the layman. This was a book I wanted so badly to champion. I wanted this to be a manual to understanding nerds that management types could turn to and reference when their software engineers act uncomfortable and reclusive at the company barbecue.

American Nerd excited me immensely when I first started reading it. "He understands!" I would mouth silently to myself on the bus, "He gets it!" I would tell anyone within earshot about how smart it was, how he explained why we act the way we do. I was high on the validation. For the first few chapters, Nugent achieves a Dawkins-like sense of knowing exactly what is in your head, but being more coherent in expressing it. He discusses incredibly interesting and insightful things, like where the word "nerd" comes from, discussing nerds in history and how America's physical education programs were thinly veiled Christian propaganda. He gives anecdotal accounts from his own life of nerdery, along with stories about different groups and subsets of nerds. The LARPers, the Sci-Fi geeks, the D+D nerds, the gamers. Well, the Major League Gaming gamers - the Halo 2 and Super Smash Bros. jocks. Of course being a gamer my ears (eyes?) perked up at my own subset being represented.

Nugent mentions that one major nerd calling card is their obsession with facts that would be deemed unimportant by "normal" standards. Take the pop culture nerd who kicks ass at Jeopardy!, or the Tolkien nerd who wrote their college thesis in Sindarin. Nugent knows these nerds pick through data looking for faults, and still there was a moment in the book when my faith in him as a writer was questioned. I was so enthusiastic about American Nerd up until he got a fact wrong. In the section about gaming, he talks about an MLG Smash Bros team called "Husband and Wife" because they play as Princess Peach and Prince, Peach's husband in the game. This error was compounded for a few different reasons.

1. Super Smash Bros is a massively popular game, selling millions of copies. Getting a character name wrong when you are writing a definitive book on the subject of nerds is just asking for trouble.
2. Princess Peach is not only a character in Smash Bros, but a billion other Nintendo-themed properties including the most persistent of all properties: Super Mario.
3. Peach isn't married, and even if she was, wouldn't she be married to Mario?
4. Who the fuck is Prince?

For a self-ascribed Nerd, that is a fairly fundamental fuck up. Didn't he have an editor? Wasn't there someone along the chain of Definitive Nerd Manual Construction do some fact-checking into this? Nugent then proceeded to lead his book directly down the steepest cliff he could find by ending without answering his thesis. By the end of American Nerd you realize Nugent is just talking to himself. He brings up subsets of nerdery and then leaves you hanging, wondering what his point is. While perhaps you could extrapolate your own answers as you glimpse through the tiny windows of this geek culture, any and all credibility is tossed out said windows in the last chapter, where Nugent discusses how he gave up being a nerd. As a teenager.

Wait, if you are writing a book about "Your People", shouldn't you be one of those people? As he leads you into this story of handing his Super Nintendo and collection of games off to a friend and leaving him in the dust, you realize Nugent is really just absolving himself of guilt. It's all about Kenneth, the kid with the bad family life who Nugent feels guilty leaving in his time of need. Kenneth was a dead weight on Nugent's leg, or so he felt at the time. I feel like he's written this book as a sort of dedication to his former friend; a pre-mid-life contemplative look back into his childhood. I would find this bittersweet and poignant if I wasn't led to believe he was an expert on the subject. Didn't he say in the foreword that he was "a little biased", being a nerd himself? But... he's not a nerd after all?

As I read the last few pages and shut the book, I stared out the window of the bus as it puttered through rush hour traffic. As I contemplated this abrupt end and ultimately egocentric diatribe, I couldn't help but feel like Kenneth: abandoned by someone who I thought understood me.

[American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent - buy it on Amazon]

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Books That I Have: Charon's Ark

posted by Qais on December 29, 2007 9:21 AM in Books, Geek Culture

We're starting a new feature here at The Weekly Geek called Books That I Have. Every week we will profile a strange, funny, interesting or otherwise rare book that we have in our home libraries.

Geeks are a strange breed, and most, though not all, have had occasion to deal with one group or another of drooling mongoloids seemingly bent on doing nothing but making said geek's life miserable. Imagine now, that the tables have turned, and that the power is in the hands of the geek. Not 15 or 20 years later like we all know is likely, but now, armed only with the skill most adolescent geeks have on hand; a near encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction, video games, aliens, monsters, robots, dinosaurs, and everything else that loner kids with more imagination than inclination to socialize find interesting.

Charon's Ark features just such a geek; Charlie Freeman, who, when he and some schoolmates are kidnapped by aliens destined for the moon of Pluto, is finally able to put to use the hours spent absorbing fantastic tales of space aliens and starship travel. It's an adolescent geek's dream! Finally, the outcasts are running the show, and much like you'd imagine a beaten man to do when facing down his brutalizers, the show run is rife with petty revenge.

But that's the best thing about Charon's Ark; every character is believable, human, people you interact with, people some of you are. It's easy to see parts of ourselves in the characters author Rick Gauger expertly plays out across the pages of Charon's Ark, easier still to rejoice with their triumphs, feel the crush of their follies, and let the hair on the back of your neck stand in fear with their danger. We are the characters, and Rick reminds us that, regardless of the labels we apply to ourselves and have applied to us by others, none of us is all one thing or the other.

Yes, most of the characters are kids, teenagers even. Hell the book itself is often classified as "Young Adult", but don't allow yourself to be fooled. Much like the characters are all themselves realistic and human, they are all also realistically dealt with. The kids at times are near totally sociopathic monsters, as kids occasionally are, and Rick attempts no illusion regarding the horrible things that can happen in extreme situations with a gaggle of panicked, unruly kids about. The book is at times incredibly grim, unlike other SF aimed at adolescents which hopes to paint a picture of a world in which real bad things only happen to people over 18, and as such honest and straightforward with it's intended audience.

Sadly, I didn't discover Charon's Ark until much later in life, which while not hampering my enjoyment of it in the least did leave me wishing I had found this book when I was Charlie Freeman; young, awkward, and with a head full of aliens, monsters, robots and dinosaurs. My head is still full of robots and dinosaurs, but the visceral feeling of being the shunned embarrassment of my peers has long since passed (mostly). The geeks of the world thank you Rick, for the paperback arm around the shoulder in youth, the epic tale of spacenapped kids, but most importantly, for the reiteration that an imagination is the most important tool you will ever have. Every kid that has ever felt misunderstood, alone, weird, left out, alien or otherwise ostracized should own a copy of this book, and you should too.

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Books That I Have: Knights of the Road

posted by Chris on December 14, 2007 12:00 PM in Books

We're starting a new feature here at The Weekly Geek called Books That I Have. Every week we will profile a strange, funny, interesting or otherwise rare book that we have in our home libraries. I have a ridiculous amount of coolness to share with you, so I hope you enjoy it!

Just about every Sunday morning my girlfriend and I head to Glo's diner in Seattle for their fantastic breakfast and horrible service (but it seriously is fantastic. Seriously.) and make a trip to Half Price Books. This has turned up a few gems in the past couple weeks such as this fantastic find, Knights of the Road: A Hobo History by Roger A. Bruns, published in 1980. I have a strange affinity toward the use of the word "hobo" in everyday conversation, and tend to be fascinated by their history. I really enjoyed reading John Hodgeman's Areas of My Expertise in which he goes into elaborate detail of hobo history. I figured most of it was John's normal brand of carefully crafted bullshit, but once I started flipping through Knights of the Road I was stunned. Knights of the Road reads like a parody, a proto-Hodgeman piece that is equal parts ridiculous and strange. But no! This is a factual book made by an actual non-humor author who actually researched stuff like hobo kings and queens, and presidential scissor-sharpeners. That's right, presidential scissor-sharpeners.

How can you not love a book that has pictures of a man called "Steam Train Maury"? The hobo is a fascinating person, thought to be on the verge of extinction. Today's crusties only pale in comparison to the daring itinerant workers of the early 20th century. Train hopping, clever nicknames, hobo jungle feasts and more paint a very stark picture of a world completely foreign to most people. Maybe that's why I am so fascinated with hoboes, they live on the fringes of society and are content in eking out a living wherever they roam.

Certainly a lot of this romantic idea of wanderlust I would assume is fueled by the hoboes' penchant for mental instability (can you have a penchant for mental instability? I bet if anyone, a hobo could!) But it is eternally fascinating to see people who claim to be umbrella repairmen, who claim to have sharpened every president's scissors except Nixon, who claim to have shacked up with actresses and European royalty. Maybe it's all true, maybe it's a moonshine-induced delusion, but either way it's an incredibly compelling story.

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Book Review: Making Comics by Scott McCloud

posted by Chris on October 31, 2006 12:34 PM in Books

It's been 12 years since the release Scott McCloud's eye-opening bible on sequential art, Understanding Comics, and 6 since his follow up, Reinventing Comics. Since its release, Understanding Comics had achieved much acclaim for helping bring understanding to the comic world. Not so much for people who are already creating comics, but more as an argument for comics as an art form, directed towards people maybe unfamiliar with the subject. McCloud was able to put into simple terms how comics work, why they work, and why they should be regarded as more than just kiddy funny papers. He writes in a style instantly relatable to people, he is an explainer in the highest sense of the word. The ultimate teacher. In Making Comics, McCloud is able to express exactly what you need to know in order to make a comic work. Hit the jump for my full review, and to find out why not only is this an essential book for any aspiring (or currently successful) comic artist's collection, but an essential book for the art form as a whole.

continue reading "Book Review: Making Comics by Scott McCloud"

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Book Review: Free Money to Pay Your Bills

posted by Amy on September 26, 2006 12:04 PM in Books

Matthew Lesko, in his question mark suit, is a television commercial staple. He’s good at grabbing your attention and making you wonder if his book really could help. After seeing his latest commercial, I decided to find out.

Free Money to Pay Your Bills is well organized and, although a couple of the programs show up more than once as they fit under multiple categories, there are hundreds of programs listed. The book gives a heading, such as “Emergency Rent Money”, and then presents the contact information of all the organizations that offer that type of program.

Even though I do not qualify for most of the programs listed, I did find a couple. If you are a low income family or individual, take care of an elderly parent, have children or are pregnant, have a disability, or are a veteran, this book has plenty of programs that may help pay your bills. If you do not fall under any of these categories you might find one or two. Check the book out from your local library or peruse it in your local book store. What can it hurt to look?

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Book Review: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

posted by Amy on September 19, 2006 11:43 AM in Books

Sybel is the daughter of a powerful, hermit wizard. She grows up learning how to call and take care of legendary animals. When her father dies, Sybel is left with only the menagerie for company. One day, a man shows up at her door with a baby boy in his arms. He tells her the child is her cousin and she is the only one who can keep him safe. She reluctantly takes the child and raises him as her own. Sybel’s life is never again the same. She soon learns to love, to hate, and to forgive.

For the last decade The Forgotten Beasts of Eld has been one of those books that I kept meaning to read but never did. I rarely read a book with expectations, but I guess I was expecting more from this book since Patricia A. McKillip wrote one of my favorite fantasy trilogies, The Riddle-Master. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is a nice story but it lacks a sense of depth. It comes across more as the telling of a legend or story than a novel. It would be a good book to have read to you but the solo reader might find it lacking. I did enjoy the book once I adjusted my expectations.

For those of us who play World of Warcraft, or are familiar with the Warcraft universe, I did find one interesting tidbit. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld mentions “the black marshes of Fyrbolg” on the very first page. In Warcraft the Furbolgs are a race of bear-like humanoids. I did a Google search and did not find any correlation between Fyrbolg and Furbolg but I did discover the Fir Bolg, an ancient race in Irish mythology. I feel it’s too much of a coincidence for Fyrbolg or Fir Bolg not to be the namesake of Furbolg, but I wonder which one it is. Isn’t knowledge fun?

For more information about Patricia A. McKillip and her books visit http://www.patriciamckillip.com/.

Find this book in the Weekly Geek's Amazon Store.

Read More: fir bolg , forgotten beasts of eld , furbolg , fyrbolg , patricia a. mckillip , sybel , World of Warcraft

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Book Review: The Tortall Universe

posted by Amy on September 12, 2006 2:21 PM in Books

The Tortall Universe currently consists of fourteen books with at least five more planned over the next few years. Created by Tamora Pierce, it is one of the best and hardest to put down series I have ever read. First published in 1983 and still going strong, the Tortall Universe appeals to all ages. Don’t let the fact the books are considered Young Adult fiction discourage you from checking them out. The characters are very well developed and have more depth than most adult fiction I have read. The series is written so that you don’t have to read the earlier books to enjoy the later ones but I highly recommend reading them in order.

I first read the Song of the Lioness quartet the summer after my seventh grade year. Up until that point I had read very little of the fantasy genre, but the story of Alanna hooked me like no other. Alanna of Trebond is a strong, young girl with a magical healing Gift who disguises herself as her twin brother so she can study to become a Knight of Tortall. Anyone familiar with the game characters I play would recognize how these first books influenced me.

After signing up with my local library, I decided to check out the other novels of Tortall. Next in the series, the Immortals quartet tells the story of Veralidaine Sarrasri, a Wildmage who can talk to animals. Orphaned when her family is killed by raiders, Daine heads west to the kingdom of Tortall where she learns to control her magic and proves invaluable in the war against the immortals.

continue reading "Book Review: The Tortall Universe"

Read More: daughter of the lioness , immortals , song of the lioness , tamora pierce , tortall

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