Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
The Walking Dead continues to be my favorite regularly published comic. You can read an interview with Walking Dead creator and writer Robert Kirkman HERE or artist Charlie Adlard HERE.
I’ve updated my blog and artist links sections with a bunch of really cool sites. I’m sure that you’ll find at least a couple that you’ll bookmark for return visits. [Hopefully not at the expense of visits here.]
The Bad: The vampyre freaks. The side show. The beating Joe takes.
The Ugly: Joe Pitt’s vengeance.
The Summary: Half the Blood of Brooklyn is an excellent example of why Charlie Huston is one of my favorite writers. He’s created a world of vampyres that could exist outside my window NOW. The only caveat is that the books are best read in order: Already Dead; No Dominion; Half the Blood of Brooklyn.
Next month, the first issue of Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries, written by Chris Mills and drawn by Joe Staton, will be listed in Diamond Comics Distribution’s Previews. If you get Previews, I’d like you to check it out. My guess is after doing so, you’ll want to order a copy. If you don’t get previews, then please ask your local comic shop owner to take a look at it.Issues #1 and #3 are inked by Horacio Ottolini, issues #2 and #4 by Mark Stegbauer. Colors are provided by Melissa Kaercher and Matt Webb. As an added bonus, each issue is offered with two covers: one pencilled by Joe Staton and then digitally painted by Alfredo Lopez Jr, with the second by a guest artist. Those guest artists are Brian Bolland, Matt Haley, Phil Hester, and the late Mike Wieringo. [Some fans will buy the issues just for the guest covers!]
The official Femme Noir website is http://www.femme-noir.com. Check out the website and if you like what you see, help me spread the word. [And no, I’m not getting any kickbacks. I like Chris Mills’ work — especially his crime comic Gravedigger — and I’d like to see Chris and Joe Staton get the audience they deserve on Femme Noir. If it wasn’t a worthy comic, I wouldn’t be talking it up… and you wouldn’t still be reading this.]
The Pitch: “Blade Runner” meets “The Dirty Dozen”
The Overview: In the near future the two most powerful organizations on the planet are the United Federation of Nations and The Electric Church. The United Federation of Nations controls the population through the use of their brutal and corrupt System Security Force [think elite military police]. The Electric Church is a new religion growing at an exponential rate due to its promise of salvation through eternal life [as a cyborg]. Avery Cates is a “gunner” – hired muscle available for a price – trying to stay under the radar of both groups. When he mistakenly kills one of the SS cops he finds himself given one option for survival: break in to the stronghold of the Electric Church and assassinate it’s leader.
The Good: Jeff Somers‘ writing. Avery Cates and his band of outlaws. The story moves. The cover illustration by Jae Lee.
The Bad: What happens to converts to The Electric Church.
The Ugly: The way most of the population lives.
The Summary: My guess is the The Electric Church will make my list of Best Books of 2008. I can’t wait to read its sequel, “The Digital Plague.”
We may have seen the last of Matt Hughes as far as MMA fighting goes. Still there are other options that would keep him active in the sport. Hughes would make an excellent commentator. He has already written one well-received book.
But if Matt Hughes decides to retire totally from the limelight, how will he be remembered? I think Dave Doyle sums it up perfectly HERE.
Duane Swierczynski is one of my favorite novelists. Recently Duane got the opportunity to write some comics… specifically the Punisher. In this interview he talks about his first experience with the Punisher:
Reading books written by Mathew Reilly is like watching an all-out action movie while riding a rollercoaster. His books are bigger than life, move at breakneck speed, keep you turning the pages — and just when you then there is no way out for the hero, Reilly kicks it up a notch and comes up with another over the top set piece as the story hurtles forward.
Whew!
Reilly’s books are fun and his latest 7 Deadly Wonders is no exception. A rare solar event called the Tartarus Rotation is set to occur shortly. Several teams are racing to gather 7 pieces of a capstone hidden around the world. If they can recover and join the pieces in time for the Tartarus Rotation they will be given power such as the world has never before seen. There’s a team from the United States, a team from England and a team of multi-national adventurers. [We’ll be pulling for the multi-national team not because they’re outgunned and out manned, but because they’re the good guys.]
And that’s all you really need to know. If you’re in the mood for an adrenaline-charged roller coaster ride that’ll make you put down the video game paddles and keep turning pages, then give Mathew Reilly’s 7 Deadly Sins a try.
PS – I just discovered that Amazon has it on sale at a HUGE DISCOUNT — click HERE for full details!
I’ve never read anything by Jeff Somers. I rarely read scifi. Especially futuristic scifi. Yet, I think that I might really enjoy The Electric Church by Jeff Somers. It’s described in THIS REVIEW as “BLADE RUNNER meets THE DIRTY DOZEN, with a dash of Sergio Leone” — so I ask, who wouldn’t like that mix?
I decided to READ THE FIRST CHAPTER FOR FREE. The I decided to read JEFF SOMERS’ BLOG. I’m still interested in reading The Electric Church so my next Amazon order will probably include it… even though I’m not much on futuristic scifi.
If there’s a bigger Charlie Huston fan than me, he’s probably a related to Charlie. Today Huston’s latest novel, The Shotgun Rule becomes available. If it’s half as good as anything else he’s written, I’m going to love it.
Nothing is as it seems in Duane Swierczynski’s first novel Secret Dead Men. Del Farmer appears to be an FBI agent investigating a mob hit. In reality Farmer is a dead reporter trying to discover the reason behind his own murder. Yeah, you read that correctly. Farmer is a dead guy. Well…
…he isn’t just a dead guy.
See, Farmer has the ability to collect souls of the recently departed. In his quest to discover the secrets behind his own murder, Farmer has collected the souls of about a dozen others…
… and they live in his brain hotel.
See, the brain hotel is a mental construct, that appears like a typical hotel and allows the recently departed to have a semblance of life. People in the brain hotel go on about living [although it’s just their memories for the most part] but they can also interact with each other. Sometimes, if their skills are better suited to getting him out of whatever jam he’s in, Farmer even uses them to pilot the body that he currently inhabits…
…and if you’re still with me, then my guess is you’ll enjoy the novel.
I loved Swierczynski’s The Wheelman and The Blonde. And although Secret Dead Men falls a bit short of being as good, we should remember that Secret Dead Men was Swierczynski’s first novel. It’s definitely worth a look.
I loved Duane Swierczynski’s The Wheelman which opened in the middle of a bank robbery gone wrong and was a fast paced, violent, at times humorous and always unpredictable story. So I couldn’t wait to read Swierczynski’s next novel The Blonde. I’m happy to say that I was hooked from the opening sentence [one of the best in recent memory]:
“I poisoned your drink.”
From there we are taken on a wild ride as Jack Eisley attempts to learn why he was poisoned by a beautiful blonde named Kelly White and why she is infected and on the run from a covert government agency’s hitman. The Blonde is fast paced, lean and will keep you on the edge of your seat as the pages fly by. Duane Swierczynski has another winner that left me excited to start on Secret Dead Men!
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Update: Duane Swierczynski just posted up the paperback cover to The Blonde which will be available October 30th!
In Stephen King’s August 10, 2007 column for Entertainment Weekly, he could be talking about why I enjoy daily blogging. King says:
“…the real purpose of these things we write about – to cause a sudden burst of happy emotion, a sudden rush to the head…”
King goes on to say that IT can be a movie, a song, or a book, but whatever IT is causes us to smile and become caught up in the moment. King said that it happened to him when he saw Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” and it happens every time he hears Van Halen’s “Jump” or gets ready to watch the latest episode of “The Shield.”
I know exactly where King is coming from. I felt the same rush the first time I saw “Rocky.” I can’t help but smile whenever I hear “Grooveline.” I still dig the original “Star Trek” and not much is better than Byrne and Austin’s run on “X-Men,”or Moench and Gulacy on “Master of Kung Fu.” Charlie Huston, Barry Eisler, and David Morrell are just three authors who can bring about “the rush.”
We all have things that give us the rush. King calls them our “personal joy buzzers.” The great thing about blogging is that we get to share our personal joy buzzers and re-experience “the rush.”
And that’s why I enjoy daily blogging.
Greg Rucka, one of my favorite novelists, has announced that he’ll be writing a new detective series called Stumptown that takes place in the same world as his novels!Although Rucka has been writing award-winning [Whiteout — soon to be a major motion picture] and fan favorite comics [Queen & Country, Gotham Central, etc] for some time, it is his five Atticus Kodiac novels [Finder, Keeper, Smoker, Shooting at Midnight, and Critical Space] that put him on my “must buy” list.
Rucka has a new Atticus Kodiac novel, Patriot Acts, coming out next month. It’s already on my pre-order list!
Robert Crais is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read [and enjoyed] all of his novels… and I’m proud to say that I’ve been with his sigature characters Elvis Cole and Joe Pike since their first appearance in The Monkey’s Raincoat. In each previous novel, Cole was always center stage with Pike coming in to back-up his partner. Pike was the tough, no-nonsense hardened gunman. We knew little about him other than he had a strict code of honor, he was loyal and he never backed up.
