Greg McElhatton

Once again, I went and tracked how many movies, books, and graphic novels I saw/read over the course of the year. Last year’s tally had me at at 31 movies, 21 books, 1 fiction magazine, and 124 graphic novels. This year? 31 movies, 24 books, 13 fiction magazines, and 110 graphic novels. Two increases, one decrease, and one exactly the same. Not bad overall… And now, let the counting start all over again!

Movies:

1. True Grit
2. Rabbit Hole
3. Another Year
4. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011: Live Action
5. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011: Animated
6. The Illusionist
7. All About Eve
8. Cedar Rapids
9. Source Code
10. Scream 4
11. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
12. Bridesmaids
13. Potiche
14. Meek’s Cutoff
15. Midnight in Paris
16. Super 8
17. X-Men: First Class
18. The Future
19. The Prestige
20. The Help
21. Griff the Invisible
22. The Debt
23. Weekend
24. The Skin I Live In
25. Martha Marcy May Marlene
26. Le Gamin au Velo
27. The Deep Blue Sea
28. The Descendants
29. Shame
30. Hugo
31. Young Adult

Books:

1. Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder
2. The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
3. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
4. Last Summer by Michael Thomas Ford
5. Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
6. Shopgirl by Steve Martin
7. The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
8. This Is NPR: The First Forty Years by NPR
9. The Diary of a Dr Who Addict by Paul Magrs
10. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
11. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
12. Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia by Samuel R. Delany
13. The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee
14. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
15. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
16. Twinkle Twinkle by Kaori Ekuni
17. D.C. Noir edited by George Pelecanos
18. Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More by Ashley English
19. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
20. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee
21. The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
22. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
23. Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow
24. Bob the Book by David Pratt

Fiction Magazines, Chapbooks, and Zines:

1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #23
2. Lightspeed Magazine, January 2011
3. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #24
4. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #26
5. Lightspeed Magazine, February 2011
6. Fantasy Magazine, March 2011
7. Fantasy Magazine, April 2011
8. Lightspeed Magazine, March 2011
9. Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011
10. Fantasy Magazine, May 2011
11. Lightspeed Magazine, May 2011
12. Fantasy Magazine, June 2011
13. Lightspeed Magazine, June 2011

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I don’t even want to admit how true this is, at times, in regard to myself.

(P.S. Will someone please reissue Dave Louapre and Dan Sweetman’s The Wasteland? I would buy several dozen copies of it as gifts. Instead I treasure my lone copy, and while I’m at it also wish for collections of their other big collaboration, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children. Seriously people, it’s a license to print money.)

If I was the sort of person to come up with a New Year’s Resolution, I like to think it would be this:

I’m sure it would do me a wealth of good on multiple levels, and be immensely satisfying to achieve at that.

As I vowed to do so a few months ago, 2011 is the year that I’m going to sit down and read… well, if not all of the Tintin albums, most of them. (The jury is still out on if I’m going to tackle the two early/problematic volumes of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, and the never-completed Tintin and Alph-Art. But the other 21 are all on the to-read list.)

While I don’t see myself writing full reviews of them, I did think it would be fun to write down somewhere my impressions of the books as I make my way through them.

So, Tintin in America. First published in 1932 as a black and white edition, redrawn (and shortened) in 1945, and then slightly edited in 1973 when published in the United States. It’s…

…well, it’s a good thing Tintin has such a high pedigree or I doubt I’d be planning on reading Cigars of the Pharaoh next. It’s not actively bad, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to tell people to read it either. Tintin taking on gangster-era Chicago sounds like a potentially fun story, but there’s so much of it that just strikes me as slightly inept. Tintin seems to be someone who benefits by good luck more than smarts half of the time (the number of near-death experiences inadvertently stopped by a third party is rather high), and it’s got such a rushed conclusion that I wonder if when the book was shortened to just 62 pages if Herge did so by throwing out everything beyond a certain point.

I found myself unsure if Tintin’s dog Snowy is supposed to actually talk or if we’re just hearing his thought processes. I’d assumed it was the latter for most of the book, but at one point he tells Tintin where he’s been for the previous few pages, and Tintin seems to understand him. Odd. And Snowy is also slightly irritating.

The depiction of the Indians is rather painful to read. It’s a big pile of stereotypes, and to top it off they’re either stupid or inept the entire time. “Make it stop,” was the thought I had during that entire sequence. Of course, when it does, it’s the one time the tone shifts with them as the Indians are abused by the US Government in order to perform a land grab. After bad slapstick and jokes centering around them up until that moment, the tonal shift is rather startling.

I did, however, like Herge’s beautiful and clean art. It’s the high point of the book, and for that alone I’m glad to have finally dipped into the Tintin library. I’ll admit I had some second thoughts on if I’m going to continue reading the books in order (especially after reading an announcement today about Fantagraphics publishing the entire Carl Barks “Ducks” library, but doing so slightly out of order in order to jump into some of the best books and storylines first), but for now I’m planning on pushing on.

Hmm. I suspect more write-ups down the line won’t be quite so long. Anyway, I’ll try and read Cigars of the Pharaoh later this month!

Once again, I went and tracked how many movies, books, and graphic novels I saw/read over the course of the year. Last year’s tally had me at at 20 movies, 20 books, and 123 graphic novels. This year? 31 movies, 21 books, and 124 graphic novels. The “just one higher” for the last two categories was a happy accident, really…

Movies:

1. Avatar
2. Invictus
3. Alice in Wonderland
4. Greenberg
5. How to Train Your Dragon
6. Iron Man 2
7. Please Give
8. The City of Your Final Destination
9. Micmacs
10. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
11. Winter’s Bone
12. Toy Story 3
13. Despicable Me
14. Inception
15. The Kids Are All Right
16. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
17. Salt
18. Christmas in Connecticut
19. A Letter to Three Women
20. Easy A
21. Heartbreaker
22. Never Let Me Go
23. Waiting For “Superman”
24. The Social Network
25. Red
26. Fair Game
27. Certified Copy
28. Tangled
29. Black Swan
30. The King’s Speech
31. Somewhere

Books:

1. Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
3. Hapworth 16, 1924 by J.D. Salinger
4. Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories by Samuel R. Delany
5. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
6. Blackout by Connie Willis
7. Ash by Malinda Lo
8. Twelve Stories by Paul Magrs
9. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
10. The City & The City by China Miéville
11. Stealing Fire by Jo Graham
12. Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
13. Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category ed. by Dave Eggers
14. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
15. Second Line by Poppy Z. Brite
16. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
17. The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff
18. Soulless by Gail Carriger
19. Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson
20. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
21. All Clear by Connie Willis

Fiction Magazines, Chapbooks, and Zines:

1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #25

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Every year, Comic Book Resources runs a “Top 100″ of the year, where all the writers and editors of the site send in their top ten lists (with a two or three sentence blurb about them) and then one of the editors (this year, the tireless Kiel Phegley) tallies the votes and organizes a huge, multi-part feature on what made the list.

Now, like all lists, my votes are subjective. There are a few books I plain forgot about. And there are others that I haven’t read, or only read part of, so I couldn’t include them in my line-up. (For instance, of the top ten books, even though I only voted for two, seven of the others are either on my “to be read/finished” list, or barely missed getting onto my own list of votes.)

But anyway, to make a long story… well, less long… for those interested, here are ten great comics from 2010 that you might find also worth reading (plus various longer reviews from me about these books over the past year, so you can get a better idea). Check em out.

The Sixth Gun
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Brian Hurtt
Publisher: Oni Press

What happens when you mix horror, dark fantasy, and the wild west? If you’re especially lucky, The Sixth Gun where every month Cullen Bunn comes up with new and fantastical creations for Brian Hurtt to beautifully draw. It’s almost criminal the first issue was given away for free at Free Comic Book Day, because there’s no way to keep from getting hooked after just one issue.

Review @ CBR (#1)
Review @ CBR (#2)
Review @ Read About Comics (#6)
Review @ CBR (#7)

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I suspect non-comic readers will not find this at all shameful, for those of you who are, this is one of those confessions that will make some of you gasp in shame: I have never read any of Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin books.

Obviously I know who Tintin is, and when that stupid hair flip was in style a few years ago I referred to those who had it as Tintins. But while my good friend Marc introduced me to Asterix back in 1980, for some reason I never raided his Tintin books while I was at it.

The sad thing is that about six or seven years ago, I ended up with an almost complete collection of the Tintin books (everything from Tintin in America through Flight 714) for just a few dollars. I picked them up then and figured I would finally get around to reading them, but a recent article about Tintin reminded me that they’re still sitting on my bookshelf, untouched.

My goal for next year is to finally sit down and read them all. I went ahead and bought a copy of Tintin and the Picaros in anticipation of reading the others. But for Tintin fans out there, here’s a question: should I bother tracking down copies of the first two volumes, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo? I know the first one is of a much cruder style, and the second one has a lot of racist depictions of people that has made it rather verboten. My instinct is to just start with Tintin in America and if, upon reading the others, I’ve enjoyed them enough I can always backtrack to those other two. (Or for that matter, pick up the never-completed Tintin and Alph-Art.) But I figured for those of you who are Tintin knowledgeable, it couldn’t hurt to double-check. (Also, read them in order, or try one of the later ones first and then jump back to the beginning? I’m leaning toward the latter but once again, can’t hurt to ask.)

It’s not quite some of the classic literature that I’ve been telling myself I’ll read soon (although I did finally tackle a few key novels over the past couple of years), but it should be a fun diversion.

There’s always a lot of talk about how comics (or more specifically, superhero comics) aren’t being aimed at children so much these days as they are adults. How true or not is a completely different debate, but I do have to say that one thing that is definitely true? There are a lot of superhero comic toys that are totally being aimed at adults.

I saw DC Comics’s Blammoids! toys a couple of weeks ago and I was entranced, utterly entranced. The ones from the first set are innocent enough, I guess, although really, what little kids want superhero figures where all you can move are their arms and heads? Totally aimed at adults, with their strange proportions and deformed bodies, meant to be perched on a desk or bookshelf.

But then I saw some of the more recent figures, and…

…all I could think was that this was how a toy line envisioned by Kevin O’Neill would appear. (For those unfamiliar with Kevin O’Neill—best known for his work on comics like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Marshall Law—he has a harsh, angular line that disturbed the Comics Code Authority enough that they refuse to approve anything he’s drawn. Which is a plus in my book, but there you go.)

Seriously, look at those three figures. They’re a little twisted and messed up. This is totally not for kids. I cannot stop laughing at these toys.

Fortunately, as my big goal for the next year or so is to wipe out debt, plus having to replace my main computer due to its painful death over the past year, it was easy to justify not buying any of these. Because I don’t need another toy addiction, after all. But I totally had to share the “wow” factor.

(Many, many more pictures of the line are available at DC’s website, for those truly interested.)

Been awfully busy lately, and that means the blog is the first thing to not get updated. I then tell myself, “I’ll have to update my website with all of the interesting things I’ve been doing.” Except, of course, it’s not terribly interesting, really. But a few things of note as of late…

Worst Open House Ever?

Probably not. But Charlie and I did look at some open houses over the weekend (not that we’re buying in the near future, but to get an idea of right now what is available in our suspected price range) and there was one house that stood out in particular for being unwelcoming. First, when we got there, the front door was locked. As we were standing right next to the front window (with the realtor slumped on a couch), he saw us trying to open the door and hopped up and opened the door. “I don’t know how that happened,” he said. Because of course the door locked its own deadbolt.

But then, we stepped in and were greeted with an overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke. As we gasped for air, then realtor dealt the final blow. “When I got here for the open house I found out that one of the contractors working on the house is not feeling well and he’s lying down in the master bedroom, so I’m going to have to ask that you not go in there.”

“We’ll just come back,” Charlie said, as he and I scrambled towards the door. Which of course, meant, never. Talk about three strikes and you’re out…

Small Press Expo 2010 A Success

This year’s Small Press Expo (a show I first attended in 1995, first volunteered for in 1997, and have helped run in some capacity since 1998) was a huge success, hurrah! It was also my last year as the grand poobah of the Ignatz Awards, so having that off my shoulders (more or less) was also a big relief. I finished up my wine sketchbook, which I started back in 2001. I am determined to buckle down and scan the rest and start posting those sketches here… soon… honest.

Autumn = Soup Weather

I love making soup in colder weather, both on the stove and in my crock pot. I also finally decided to give Soupergirl a try, a local chef who sells her homemade soups that you order in advance. I’m going to keep making my own soup, of course, but I’m dying to see how hers taste too. Especially since hers is a zucchini pear soup, something that sounds strange at first and then intriguing, and more importantly I’d never have thought to try it on my own.

Upcoming Documentary I Can’t Wait To See

Waiting for “Superman” is opening this weekend in the DC area, David Guggenheim’s new documentary on the public school system in the United States and its decline over recent years. Part of the focus is on the DC school system and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, and I’m looking forward to seeing it for myself. For the record, while I don’t think she was perfect (and made some mistakes along the way), I do think that Rhee was one of the best things to happen to DC public schools in the past few years.