If you missed ARROWSMITH, the splendid mini-series by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheo, now is your chance to repent by purchasing the trade paperback ARROWSMITH: SO SMART IN THEIR FINE UNIFORMS. It’s a beautifully rendered mix of fantasy and war story, but the key to it is the characterization; the characters are layered, sympathetic, and interesting. This is some of the best work Busiek has done outside of ASTRO CITY, and the pencils by Pacheo and Jesus Merino are gorgeous throughout.
Publisher’s Weekly has summed up my feelings on THE ULTIMATES quite nicely. Thanks to Kevin Melrose at Thought Balloons for blogging it.
Mark Hale again confesses to an embarrassing entry in his collection, SLEEPWALKER #1. Visit the ChaosMonkey and share the shame.
Earlier, I was kvetching about Christopher Moore’s COYOTE BLUE and had set it aside. Stranded at home with a head cold, I picked it up again and hit a turning point in the story that makes it all work for me. I don’t want to give anything away, but about a third of a way through, there’s a great scene that gives the proceedings some real pathos. Still funny, but the stakes and sympathy rise to Moore’s usual level.
It’s like in high school when I was reading GRAPES OF WRATH and thought I was going to lose my mind until I got to that short chapter with the diner waitress, and it all came together. Weird how that can happen.
Olivier Coipel is apparently spelling Alan Davis for a few issues of UNCANNY X-MEN, with preview pages at the Pulse. When I first saw his work on LEGION, Coipel’s pencils made my eyes bleed. I thought he’d improved considerably by the time he was working on AVENGERS (though some of the costume designs were awful). I’m not sure what to make of his pages for UXM but to say that he seems to have some of Ed Benes’s fondness for the gynecologic.