Christmas Covers - December 14

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1961's Sugar and Spike #32. The cover by Sheldon Mayer has the youngsters pondering one of the holiday's essential mysteries.

Just 11 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Like Printing Money

Rumor has it that Jim Lee & Alex Ross will be doing covers for next summer's Crisis 2 event series.

But if they want the thing to really sell, they'll have Lee do the pencils for the interiors.

Remember how for Crisis on Infinite Earths DC had their biggest creative team at the time, Marv Wolfman & George Perez, doing the honors? Shouldn't Crisis 2 be afforded the same? While DC has a number of good super-hero artists available, no one but Lee can realistically 'open' a summer blockbuster for them.

It would sell like nothing else has in the past decade...

Quick Manga Reviews

Apocalypse Meow, vol. 1
by Motofumi Kobayashi
What a disappointment. In using rabbits, cats and other animals to tell stories of the Vietnam War, Kobayashi seems to be aiming to produce a work on the level of Maus, but he falls quite short of the mark. While the art does a remarkably fine job of presenting the setting and the action, and doesn't look ridiculous at all in integrating the animal characters, the stories are as pointless as the plot from a first person shooter. Bunnies go on a mission, shoot things, get shot at, then come home. The characters are barely one dimensional. While war may seem pointless to those in the trenches, stories about war cannot afford to be without a point.
Rating: 1.5 (of 5)


Ai Yori Aoshi, vol. 1
by Kou Fumizuki
In this young men's romance manga, college student Kaoru is surprised when his chilfriend friend Aoi, now a beautiful young woman, shows up unexpectedly and declares that she's going to marry him. It's a standard sort of male fantasy, as Aoi wishes to serve Kaoru every desire. There's an added complication in that Kaoru has disowned himself as heir to the a powerful merchant family and Aoi's family disapproves of her being with someone who has brought such dishonor on himself. Fumizuki's art is strong, especially the detailed backgrounds, and the storytelling is clear. It's fine for what it is, but there's just something creepy about the fact that the perfect woman is presented as submissive--I suppose that there's something inticing to a young man in the thought that a perfect woman would just show up at the door one day, and that 'true blue love' with with a sexy girl can be had with no effort.
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)


Musashi #9, vol. 1
by Takahashi Miyuki
Musashi is Agent #9 for Ultimate Blue, a secret extra-governmental organization that works behind the scenes to stop terrorists and maintain world order. Although she's only 16-years-old, Musashi is considered to be the most effective of the nine special U.B. operatives. Unfortunately, throughout each of the four stories in this volume Musashi remains a cipher, completely undeveloped as a character. The only thing we know about her personality is that she dresses like a man, and is mistaken for a teenage boy until the very end of the story when her gender is revealed. This could make for an interesting character, but nothing is made of Musashi's ambiguous gender other than the reveal--there's no attempt to explore gender roles or Musashi's identity at all, it's just a quirk of the story. Miyuki's art is generally strong and he draws action well, but his characters tend to lack personality in their drawing as well as in their characterization.
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)

Christmas Covers - December 13

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1997's Starman #27. The cover by Tony Harris illustrates James Robinson's story "Christmas Knight."

Just 12 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Christmas Monkey Covers - December 12

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. In addition, Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB, because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

So to celebrate this second Sunday in December, I present you with a Christmas cover featuring a monkey! (Okay, actually a gorilla...) Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from CBR.

The cover is from 1967's Treasure Chest vol. 23 #8. The cover by an unknown artist features the supposed editor of Treasure Chest, a comic distributed in Roman Catholic schools and churches, getting into the Christmas spirit.

(A big YACB thanks to Scott Shaw!'s Oddball Comics where I came across this wonder of holiday merriment!)

Just 13 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Christmas Covers - December 11

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1979's The Brave and the Bold #148. The cover by Jim Aparo illustrates Bob Haney's story of Batman and Plastic Man beating the true meaning of Christmas into the skulls of mobsters intent on pulling a 'Grinch' on the citizens of Gotham.

Just 14 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

A Complex Inferiority

Warning: Rant Ahead.

Via Kevin at Thought Balloons comes yet another story in the news about comics & graphic novels in school libraries: "Comic books arrive in school as learning tool" by Denise-Marie Balona of the Orlando Sentinel. (registration required; try Bug Me Not.)

As with most articles of this ilk, the emphasis is placed on comics being for so-called 'reluctant readers,' particularly boys. Sayeth one of the librarians quoted in the article: "Even if it's just a few words and lot of pictures now, we will progress to more words and less pictures."

The inference being that comics are a form of 'lesser' literature; that it's okay for kids to be reading comics, because they will 'progress' to 'better' or 'real' reading material.

I see this over and over again, and quite frankly I'm getting sick of it. I'm sure that I don't have to make the arguments to readers of this blog, that you all know that there are graphic novels which are as complex and rich and challenging as any work of prose, and prose works that are just as banal as any issue of Youngblood. I just wish that the school librarians would make the same argument, instead of falling back on the comics as gateway to 'real' books meme.

I wonder if these are trully the attitudes of the school librarians, or if they're just covering their asses from parents/teachers/administrators/school board members who wold otherwise be outraged that the school library is spending money on and promoting an 'inferior' form of literature instead of 'real' books. As if a kid would be better served reading "Goosebumps" or "Baby Sitters Club" instead of Bone or Akiko.

I personally have been actively reading both comics and prose pretty much my whole life. I'm hardly what one would call a reluctant reader; I was reading on my own before age three, and by age five I was reading comics. From reading Superman I knew what workds like 'invulnerable' and 'solitude' meant; hardly the typical vocabulary of a kindergartener! I graduated salutatorian of my high school class, so I'd say that reading comics in no way harmed my intellectual or educational growth. In fact, it was my habit of reading comics that led to my persuing a career as a librarian (a story that I'll tell another time...)

(I'm glad that our library is developing a comic and GN collection because they are being seen as a valid form of artistic expression that we need to have in order to support the curriculum of the University.)

Oh well, at least comics are being viewed these days as a gateway to reading, instead of as a gateway to juvenile deliquency...

Christmas Covers - December 10

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1946's Action Comics #93. The cover by Jack Burnley & Stan Kaye shows Superman bringing Christmas cheer to a bunch of kids stranded on a cloud with a Christmas tree.

Just 15 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Christmas Covers - December 9

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1953's Pogo Possum #11. The legendary Walt Kelly gives us a cover featuring Albert & a bunch of ducks filling in for Santa in the Okefenokee Swamp.

Just 16 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Quick Comic Reviews

The Ultimates 2; Superman/Batman; Detective Comics; Outsiders

The Ultimates 2 #1
by Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary
This first issue serves as a fine re-introduction to the Ultimate version of the Avengers (and since the Avengers are now AWOL in the regular Marvel-U, it's good that we can see them somewhere). Despite the long layoff since the first series, this series hasn't missed a beat. This issue is mostly filled with character stuff, giving us a look at the lives of the heroes when they're not dealing with large threats. While it begins with a bit of action with Captain America on a covert mission, I would have prefered to see it begin on a larger scale, joining in media res at the tail-end of some huge threat that The Ultimates are putting a stop to. Still, it's not fair to judge a book on what it's not, and I'm sure that before long we'll get the huge action that this book is known for.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


Superman/Batman #15
by Jeph Loeb, Carlos Pacheco & Jesús Marino
Lots of action, a few surprises, and a cast and plot that may require you to keep your copies of Who's Who nearby (unless you're a hopeless long-time DCU geek like myself!) I was a bit worried that we'd be getting five issues of Superman & Batman as dictators, but thankfully Loeb's story looks to be a lot more complex than that.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


Detective Comics #801
by David Lapham, Ramon Bachs & Nathan Massengill
Now this is a Batman comic! David Lapham's opening chapter of "City of Crime" just oozes with mood and atmosphere, and makes the city of Gotham a character just as important as Batman. This is a dense story, full of smaller stories which come in and out quickly--sometimes for just a panel--one of which seems insignificant at the time but comes to the fore near the end. Lapham's Batman is a part of the city, moving along the alleys and rooftops like a lone agent out to eradicate the city's sickness, even while knowing that it's an impossible task. Working over Lapham's layouts, Bachs & Massengill give us art that matches the story perfectly, and their cityscapes in particular are stunning--one really gets the sense that the story is happening in a real space. If this level of quality can be maintained throughout the next 11 issues, "City of Crime" will go down as one of the definitive Batman stories.
Rating: 4 (of 5)


Outsiders #18
by Judd Winick & Carlos D'Anda
Ugh. If possible, this second part of "Most Wanted" manages to be more clunky than the first. Other than getting publicity for America's Most Wanted, John Walsh's precense here seems only to cause the heroes to lose several points of IQ (isn't Nightwing supposed to have been trained by the World's Greatest Detective?) And that ending--in the wake of all the fuss made in Identity Crisis about how much security is given to the homes of the families of heroes, it's just really stupid. To top it off, D'Anda work is just as clumsy here as the story, though it's not helped in the least by Sno-Cone's murky colors.
Rating: 1.5 (of 5)

Christmas Covers - December 8

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 2000's Top Ten #6, with poor Santa running afoul of the law in Gene Ha & Zander Cannon's piece illustrating the Alan Moore story "You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry..."

Just 17 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

New This Week: December 8, 2004

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:

The pick of the week is Global Frequency: Detonation Radio from DC/Wildstorm. This collection of issues #6-12 of the limited series show writer Warren Ellis at his best, as he crafts six taut done-in-one thrillers about 'normal-yet-extraordinary' people saving the world from extraordinary threats. He is joined by a different artist for each story; this volume features Lee Bermejo, Simon Bisley, Tomm Coker, Gene Ha, Jason Pearson, Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

In other comics:

AiT/PlanetLAR has the final issue (#12) of Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan's Demo.

Antarctic has a Pocket Manga collection of Ben Dunn's fun alternate world/British secret agent story The Agents.

Dark Horse has the second issue of BPRD: The Dead.

DC has new issues of Fables (#32), Gotham Central (#26); JLA (#109--more with the Crime Syndicate); JSA (#68--JSA/JSA begins, with Per Degaton!); and the 100th issue of Nightwing (please please please don't let it suck...)

Image has the penultimate issue of JMS's Rising Stars (#23).

Lost in the Dark has a new issue of the end-of-the-world story Video.

Marvel has a new issue of Powers (#7) and, um, well, that's it really.

Origin has the first issue of Temporary: Cubes and Ladders

Viz has the fifth volume of Osamu Tezuka's magnum opus, Phoenix.


It's a small week, which is good because my to-be-read pile is waaaay too big!

Draft of DDC Revisions

It takes a special kind of geek to be both a library geek and a comic book geek. Thankfully, I fit that description.

If you do too, or if you're just interested in the minutia of Dewey Decimal Classification, then you may be interested in the fact that OCLC has released the Draft schedule 741.5 Cartoons, caricatures, comics, graphic novels, fotonovelas.

They've moved a couple of things around and clarified several things in the notes, including explaining what I call the 'Neil Gaiman problem'. (Gaiman is an English author, but most of his works were published by American publishers--so if you're categorizing geographically, where does Sandman go?)

Christmas Covers - December 7

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is 1986's Alf Holiday Special #1, where ol' Gordon Shumway seems to be having vowel troubles at Santa's North Pole offices.

Just 18 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Previews-o-Rama part 2: The Middle

It's time to go through the latest Previews to discover the good, the bad, and the strange:


Abiogenesis resolicits Strangehaven #17, so now you have a second chance to order it.

Adhouse has Project: Superior, an original anthology with indy-type creators doing original super-hero creations. Contributors include Paul Hornshcemeier, Dean Haspiel, John Lucas, Jim Mahfood, Tara McPherson, Scott Morse, Brian Lee O'Malley, Paul Pope, Paul Rivoche, Jim Rugg, and Brian Wood.

AiT/PlanetLAR brings us Scurvy Dogs, vol. 1: Rags to Riches, collecting the 5-issue humor series.

Alternative Comics has Jim Campbell's Xeric Award-winning Krachmacher.

Amaze Ink/Slave Labor has a third It's Science with Dr. Radium collection, and a new printing of Andi Watson's second Skeleton Key volume, Celestial Calendar (which remains my favorite thing that Watson has done--I may finally get the collection, even though I own all the original issues).

For those of you without enough T&A comics in your life, Anarchy Studios/Harris Comics has Vampirella/Witchblade: Feast of the Cannibal Dolls #1. I'm sure they're sending copies to the Harvey Awards committee even as I write this...

Antarctic Press has a Pocket Manga of Ben Dunn's Heaven Sent. Who's the sucker for paying full price for the individual issues when he could have waited for the inevitable collection? Me.

Antarctic also has Gold Digger Adventures, a GD-12 one-shot from Fred Perry.

Ape Entertainment's A Different Pace GN has pretty girl space pirates in four short stories.

Arcade is actually soliciting a Youngblood: Genesis collection. Wanna take bets on how many times this gets resolicited?

Archie's Betty & Veronica Spectacular gets a makeover in the form of teen magazines.

Lady Death survives the death of another publisher and is born again at Avatar as Brian Pulido's Medieval Lady Death. It claims to be all-ages, but if that's the case should she really be wearing a corset and brandishing a sword?

Beckett's second Ruule series, Kiss & Tell, comes to a conclusion.

That poor girl in the ad for Jim Balent's Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose is going to have a very sore back when she gets older. She should consider reduction surgery...

CPM Manga's new Masca manhwa says that it's a "sexy goth fantasy in the tradition of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, but it looks suspiciously like yaoi. Does anyone know if this is the case?

Drawn & Quarterly is reprinting Chester Brown's 80s mini-series Ed the Happy Clown, but wouldn't it have made mroe sense to issue this as a collection than as individual comics? They also have a second issue of Kevin Huizenga's Or Else

Deamwave continue to milk the Transformers nostalgia until it carries them to the grave.

A Zot! statue would be cool, but not for $90.

El Capitan is reissuing David Lapham's Stray Bullets trades in 10th anniversary editions.

Fantasgraphics finally has the final issue of Jessica Abel's La Perdita.

Graphix/Scholastic has the first of the color Bone digests, but if I were you I'd get the one-volume complete edition instead (DCBS has it for just twenty bucks...)

IDW's Bigfoot has art by Richard Corben. They also have a collection of the former Image series Sword of Dracula.

Kenzer & Company's Knights of the Dinner Table hits the big #100, which goes to show that even if your drawing ability is limited, you can still have a hit by knowing and appealing to your audience.

NBM/Papercutz has a collection of the first Hardy Boys stories and the first Nancy Drew OGN. NBM also has a second collection of Lewis Trondheim's Dungeon.

Oni has the second Scott Pilgrim OGN as well as a reissue of O'Malley's Lost at Sea.

Rosen Publishing Group has a new series of books about 'Graphic Novelists,' with individual volumes for Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, Colleen Doran & Will Eisner. They're all worthy talents, but wouldn't it have made more sense to release one of these hardcover volumes per month rather than all at once?

Domestic publisher Seven Seas debuts four titles, each done in 'authentic manga style'. Which means that not only are they 192-page black & white 5" x 7.5" books done with manga-style art, but they're also done to read 'backwards' like 'real' manga, despite the fact that they are original books done here in America for a western audience. We have now officially reached the silly point of the manga craze. They actually look like they could be interesting titles, but choosing to do your comics backwards to ape manga is just kind of sad.

SAF Comics has Tex, a black & white western GN with art by Joe Kubert.

Is it just me, or is TokyoPop publishing a lot of manhwa these days? Is the stuff from Korea cheaper to license than the stuff from Japan?

GTO is on volume 23. I gave it up when it started to get repetitive for me by volume 4; I can't imagine how it could be dragged this long.

Top Shelf has a second Owly volume. I haven't read the first, but I've read good things about it.

Viz's S.O.S., a shojo series about teenage girls who start a 'secret dating agency' at their school, looks like it could be interesting.


Well, that wraps up another trip through Previews. I hope that you find something that appeals to you.

Christmas Covers - December 6

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is by Keith Giffen & Bob Oksner from 1986's Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer. Given how seriously comics seem to be taking themselves these days (exhibit #1: Identity Crisis), isn't it about time for AB to pop up again?

Just 19 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Previews-o-Rama part 1: The Front

It's time to go through the latest Previews to discover the good, the bad, and the strange.

Dark Horse

Randy Queen jumps on the bandwagon and transforms his formerly T&A Darkchylde into a manga-esque all-ages Manga Darkchylde.

The wait for the trade is over, as there's finally a trade collection of Busiek & Nord's Conan.

Peter David & Pop Mhan's SpyBoy: Final Exam gets collected.

Mike Richardson & Rick Geary tell the story of early 20th century con-man Arthur Craven in Craven. Pretty much anything that Geary does is worth a look, though you may want to wait for the trade, as this is a 72-page hardcover.

The CrossGen rebirth continues with Ron Marz & Jeff Johnson's Dragon Prince #1.

There are two more revised Sin City collections: The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard.

The latest Cal McDonald collection, Last Train to Deadsville, has art by Kelley Jones.

A new manga series: Katsuya Terada's The Monkey King. Monkeys!


DC

The big debut is Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers #0, with art by J. H. Williams. This is the project I'm most geeked about for 2005. Morrison also has the first issue of Vimanarama! with Philip Bond. Morrison has been on a roll lately, so I hope it continues with these two projects.

Ed Brubaker & Doug Mahnke give us a "Joker: Year One"-style one-shot with Batman: The Man Who Laughs, a re-telling of the first encounter between The Joker and his arch-nemesis.

Action Comics #824 is not written by Chuck Austen, but threatens to continue the same stupid stories of Preus & Doomsday.

The "Supergirl" story from Superman/Batman gets a hardcover collection.

Giffen, DeMatteis, Maguire & Rubinstein take over JLA Classified as their "I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League" takes over the title with issue #4.

Carlos D'Anda continues doing 'guest' art on Outsiders. I think that he's done more issues lately than supposed 'regular' artist Tom Raney. Unfortunately, D'Anda's style is completely unsuited for this title.

Paul Pope is the man for Solo #3.

There are two new manga series from CMX: Gals!, apparently a young-girl's shojo (with those typical super-huge eyes), and Tenjho Tenge, a high school combat series. And here I thought that we'd get soemthing more original from CMX than the same-old same-old...

The early Alan Moore series Skizz gets a collection.

Devlin Waugh: Red Tide has art by Steve Yeowell & Jock.

The new Howard Chaykin series Legend as art by the legendary Russ Heath. All together now: "Wait for the Trade".

Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti try again, this time with Twilight Experiment,

DC's current best comic, Alan Moore & J. H. Williams III's Promethea, comes to a close with #32. Buy two copies so you can dissassemble one to make the giant double-sized poster.

Tom Strong #31 starts a two part tale by writer Michael Moorcock.

Lucifer gets another collection, Exodus, which inexplicitly skips issue #45...

Image

Bruce Jones's Freak Show features art by the legendary Bernie Wrightson, but it's a limited edition black & white hardcover. I image that there'll be a paperback collection soon, so I'll wait for that.

The Expatriate #1 has a well-worn plot (CIA agent on the run from his employers), but it's written by hawaiian Dick writer B. Clay Moore, so it's potentially worth a look anyway.

There's a new A Distant Soil (#38), but I wait-for-the-trade on this one.

Todd Nauck's reality-series-meets-super-heroes comic Wildguard: Casting Call gets a trade collection. If you enjoy old-fashioned super-hero fun, check this out.

Marvel

Black Panther returns, written by Birth of a Nation co-creator Reginald Hudlin and drawn by John Romita, Jr. There's also a collection of Jack Kirby's old Black Panther series as well.

I'm not sure about Young Avengers, but it does has art by Jim Cheung. I can almost guarantee that this'll get a trade collection, so I think I'll wait.

Ditto on Adam Warren & Rick Mays's Livewires.

Runaways returns with a new #1, and gets a third Marvel age collection as well.

Does anyone else find the cover of Spectacular Spider-Man #25 to be creepy and wrong?

The biggest 'why bother' of the month comes in the fact that Marvel Age Fantastic Four and Marvel Age Spider-Man are given new #1s as Marvel Age Fantastic Four Tales and Marvel Age Spider-Man Tales. Nobody buys these in comics form anyways, so what difference will a new #1 be?

X-Force: Shatterstar: because you don't have enough crap in your life.

The three-issue story Doctor Spectrum finally comes to an end with #6.

Frank Cho's Shana, The She-Devil comes from the Marvel Knights imprint, not MAX, so I guess he went back a drew in skimpy leopard-print jungle-bras...

Collections include: Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks (Jae Lee art!); Clarmont & Davis's Uncanny X-Men - The New Age, vol. 2: The Cruelest Cut (say that 10 times fast!); Rogue: Going Rogue; What If...? (no need now to buy the individual issues this month, unless you've already pre-ordered them like I did--idiot); an Essential Luke Cage; and Marvel Weddings--pop quiz: how many of the marriages featured here are still together?


That's it for part 1. Part 2 tomorrow (probably...)

Christmas Monkey Covers - December 5

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. In addition, Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB, because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

So to celebrate this first Sunday in December, I present you with a Christmas cover featuring a monkey! Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

The cover is from 1945's Famous Funnies #125. The cover by an unknown artist shows Santa delivering toys to a monkey who has been very good this year!

(A big YACB thanks to Gordon of Blog THIS, Pal! for bringing this cover to my attention!)

Just 20 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Christmas Covers - December 4

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version from GCD.

Today's cover is from 1960's Dell Four Color #1154, featuring "Santa Claus Funnies." The cover by an unknown artist shows Santa trying an alternate method of transportation on Christmas Eve. The way the snow is blowing, I sure hope that Santa has AAA!

Just 21 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

Library Update

Thanks to everyone who has weighed in about what comics and GNs we should be getting for the library. No one gave me just twenty, but that's okay; as I suspected, there are some good things that I would have missed on my own. If you haven't yet had a chance, you can still submit your lists, either in the comments section here or in the original post.

It occurs to me that it would help to know which comics & GNs we already have at the library. This link will take you into our online catalog and show the things we have. This covers all the libraries at the U; we are getting many of the items at the Hatcher Graduate Library transferred up here to the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library. Most of the items we already have were gather haphazardly, either as needed for a class, purchased for the Juvenile collection, or donated. I know that there are still some things in the pipeline that aren't yet in the catalog.

We should soon have the funds in place to start buying, which is the fun part! When things start arriving, maybe I'll post weekly updates here as to what comes in that's new.