Quick Reviews

Okay, so I've been catching up on some reading (thank you local library).

Among the books was Gene Yang's excellent American Born Chinese from First Second books. It's no wonder why this book has gotten much acclaim. The story revolves around an American-born Chinese who is coming to grips with his heritage. Yang weaves an impressive tale here consisting of three seemingly unrelated subplots.

Another book picked up was Kevin C. Pyle's Blindspot from Henry Holt and Co. This graphic novel was a coming of age tale about a boy getting ready to move and remembering some of the adventures he'd had. The story starts out well, but the pacing picks up a bit too quickly to the point where the book finishes and the reader is left looking for more meat. While Pyle manages to capture the experience of that age, his story seems as if the character loses interest in retelling his story here about half way through.

Also finally got a chance to read the Tokyopop book East Coast Rising by Becky Cloonan. I honestly don't know why it's rated teen. I saw nothing in it save some harsh language that I would prevent me giving it to my 8 year old. In fact, it's a book I think he might actually enjoy. Pirates, sea creatures, and lots of action. Cloonan fills the pages with some interesting characters and manages to tease the connections that each of them share. It's a fun ride, but ends rather abruptly. This was much like chapter one of a much longer story. Which is fine if volume 2 follows quickly, but it doesn't come out until next year. Will I still be interested? Maybe.

I picked up some mainstream books as well, including Paul Dini's Batman: Detective which was great. Each issue of Dini's run that's reprinted here was a standalone issue. The tales are adult in nature (definitely not something I'd give my 8 year old), but each story is reminiscent of the tales that I grew up with in the 1970's and 1980's.

Another DC book picked up was Robin: To Kill a Bird. Bill Willingham weaves a fairly entertaining tale through this. Though I knew some of the current happenings in the DCU, I don't follow all of the massive crossover stories that have been happening the last couple years. Willingham fills those gaps in nicely without making the reader feel like he needs to hunt down the other stories. The art was pretty good all around. I'm a sucker for Damion Scott's work as I enjoyed his run on Batgirl a few years back. Scott McDaniel picks up the slack with his usual flare toward the end. My biggest complaint would be the darkening that they've done with the character. They've put poor Tim Drake through the ringer in his short career as Robin. Might be a good idea to interject him with a little bit of lightness.

As I said, I've been catching up a lot this summer on my reading. I have others I may touch on later, but this is all for now.