Todd Klein's Blog, page 382

And Then I Read: RASL Volume 2

Image © Jeff Smith.

Some comics creators seem to have only one theme or direction in their work, and if they're good enough, they can make a career out of variations on that theme. It's rare to see someone follow one theme for many years, then take off in a completely different direction, but that's what BONE creator Jeff Smith is doing in RASL. I admire that ability, and I like RASL a lot. Perhaps not quite as much as BONE, but nearly.

RASL is written like a film noir thriller: information is ...

Our WSB Century Run, 2010

The story begins on Friday evening, when we had plans to get to sleep early, since Saturday would be a very long day. Friday was hot and humid, with thunderstorms predicted all day, but we didn't hear the first rumbles until we were in bed at 9 PM. I slept uneasily until 10:30 PM when we were jolted awake by loud thunder and lightning and a sound like someone dumping truckloads of marbles onto our roof! It was a rare hailstorm that had us alternately laughing and groaning for about 15...

Big Day Tomorrow

Like this group at Higbee WMA this morning, our team, and dozens of others, will be out tallying species for the World Series of Birding tomorrow. The weather sounds pretty good, though the best thing that could happen would be for the skies to clear tonight so more migrants could fly in. That's looking a bit iffy.

A big thank you to ALAN DOYLE for pledging support for our team again this year. That makes three pledgers, and all repeats. I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't interest any n...

Me, in the Paper

I've been interviewed lots of times over the years, but nearly always for some comics-related magazine, book or website. This is the first time I'm in a regular paper, and one we actually get at our house. Not the daily paper, but a smaller weekly paper, The Middle Township Gazette. And the reporter, Chuck O'Donnell, is not local at all.

A few weeks ago Mr. O'Donnell called to say he wanted to do an article about me for this local paper, even though he's in North Jersey, and works for a large ...

And Then I Read: LI'L ABNER Volume 1

Images © Capp Enterprises, Inc.

"Li'l Abner" is a comic strip I grew up reading, the Sunday pages at least, and thought it was pretty good stuff. At around age 12 I found the Capp trade paperback, "The Life and Times of the Shmoo," and I loved everything about it, from the humor to the social commentary to the cartooning. In the mid 1960s I grew disillusioned with Capp when he began attacking left-wing figures like Joan Baez in the strip. I felt somewhat betrayed, and stopped reading the...

And Then I Read: HELLBOY, THE WILD HUNT

Images © Mike Mignola.

This is the best Hellboy story I've read in a long time. Mignola's writing is in top form, and Duncan Fegredo is an excellent choice for the art, capturing the feel of Mignola's own art without really imitating it very much. What Fegredo seems to have done is to simplify his style, in the same way that Mignola does, but it's still his own style. Perhaps he worked over Mignola page layouts, too, which would help capture Mike's approach.

If there has been a better artist...

And Then I Read: B.P.R.D. THE DEAD

Images © Mike Mignola.

Now this is more like it! A complete story with intrigue, suspense, sub-plots and great characters. John Arcudi joins Mignola on the writing, and it's a good partnership, having the feel of Mignola throughout, with perhaps some of the character interactions being a bit more developed, which is a good thing. The group of monster-hunters are relocated to an abandoned secret base in Colorado where they find ghosts and old conflicts adding on to their own difficulties with a...

And Then I Read: B.P.R.D. THE SOUL OF VENICE

Image © Mike Mignola.

This is the second trade paperback collecting the adventures of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, a spinoff series from Mignola's HELLBOY. It was first published in 2004, but I hadn't read it until now. It's a collection of one-shots and stories by a variety of different writer/artist teams, some of which I liked better than others.

"The Soul of Venice" is written by Miles Gunther & Michael Avon Oeming with Mignola, and the art is by Oeming, who does a...

Luna Moth!

Ellen and I were birding in Belleplain this morning, and drove in to look around the Lake Nummy campground. On our way out, we were approaching the little entrance kiosk that serves as a fee-collection spot in the summer, and I said,

"Let's see if the Phoebe nest over the light on the kiosk is being used." As we drove up I spotted a pale green object of some size on the dark wood below the light with the nest on it, and said, "Luna Moth!" Sure enough, that's what it was, resting in the...

Bird Chat and Signage

Before there was online chat, there was, of course, simply chat. That must have inspired the name of this bird, the Yellow-breasted Chat, that I enjoyed on my Higbee walk this morning. It's the largest warbler, and acts more like a vireo (which I realize may mean nothing to you), so I'll explain: it sits a lot and "chats" with a variety of different brief calls, like someone responding to a conversation. Occasionally it flies up and flutters while calling, establishing nesting territory and h...