The Move is done. The living room still resembles an obstacle course, but it’s now possible to enter the kitchen without pole-vaulting over cardboard boxes. Settling down is in progress even as I speak.

One of the primary tasks to be done is to buy a book case. Or two. There are indeed shelves aplenty in the new house, but I need the bookcases for the comics and GNs. I even took the audio CDs out of their cabinet, arranged them in the TV stand and used the cabinet to stock manga. Loads of crates of comics abound, and I don’t want to leave them stored like that in this house, at least. Maybe I will hit one of those “buy one, get another free”-furniture houses. There seem to be quite a few of them in town, but I have no idea how it works – do they jack their prices up and shite?

Another priority task is to get the art pieces framed. Including the Mandala. The new house has extreme galleria possibilities, muhuhahahahah.

And did I tell you the bathrooms have sensor taps? Sensor taps! I wave my toothbrush at them every morning like a mad wizard, and finally give up and submit to getting my hand wet.

This was the first time I moved into a new house and was simultaneously in another part of the country. My flatmates rock.

More Ultimate Spider-man news. Issue 100 was released recently, and Marvel comics teamed up with the HERO initiative ( which is a trust of sorts for comicbook creators) came up with the idea of a 100 sketch covers. 100 issues of Ultimate Spider-man #100 were produced with a blank white cover, and 80 artists were commissioned to sketch on the covers – basically creating a 100 unique covers of Ultimate Spider-man #100. The covers are being auctioned off in batches. Artists contributing include the likes of Todd McFarlane ( who does his first work for Marvel after he split from them and founded Image comics with Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld sometime in 1992.), Frank Quitely, George Perez, John Romita Sr, Sergio Aragones, Alan Davis, John McCrea, Chris Bachalo and well, loads more. You can check out the complete press-listing and the images here.

The first two batches have already been auctioned. As it turns out, the first 20 in Orlando raised 6000$. While the 20 auctioned in NY made over 16k. Why the difference? Because John Dolmayan, the drummer for System of a Down and well-known comic-book fan bought half the lot. Gaaaaaaaaaaaah. Did you know the guy had A-level artists do artwork on his drumkit for FREE? Why does he need to increase prices in an already-inflated market? Why? WHY?

The ones that have sold so far are listed here.

Warren Ellis is having a Q&A session with the members of The Engine. They get to ask him questions, and he answers them. The thread is upto 300-odd posts, and The Man has done a great job of answering them so far.

On page 101, he answers the following question: What are your thoughts about efforts like Virgin Comics? Is graftingEastern myth onto Anglophone-style comics a useful model for exportingcomics to a new audience?

His answer: I haven’t read any Virgin comics, so I don’t really have anything useful to share here.

But remember that Indian comics, as a form, are only sixty years old.Specifically in terms of comics, their traditions are still young, andthe form may yet be fluid enough to accept hybrids.

And then he links to this image.

SQUEE!

So I am doing a quiz in Kanpur tomorrow, and mucho pleased because it’s shaped up quite well. The week’s been terrible so far, with work deadlines and tonnes of packing and impromptu meetings and vehicle breakdowns and passport-related running-around. Was supposed to move today, but postponed the event to Monday. I get back Sunday night.

So yesterday I was talking about this last page of USM 78, where M-J totally rocked. Putting up scans right here. Click on each thumbnail to enlarge.

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Actually, I think I figured out why I am feeling so down. I need a new Wishlist. My life needs some focus.

Focus. Foc. Us.

Ah, the joys of materialism.

Moving house. Packing DVDs. Padding comics. Packing books. Backing ache.

And I need to unpack when I get there? GAAAAAH!

Fantagraphics is going to reprint The Complete Pogo by Walt Kelly! Complete Pogo!! How cool is that! You know what’s cooler? Jeff Smith – the man behind Bone and the recent Shazam: Monster Society of Evilis designing the books. Can’t hardly wait.

I read John Porcellino’s Perfect Example the other day and was totally unimpressed. Yes, I am more of a genre-worshipper, so autobiographical graphic novels are a bit iffy. But consider this, I love Epileptic, Persepolis, Maus, and a whole load of other autobiographical comics, but found Perfect Example boring. Probably it was the art, which was so stripped-down that, I will be perfectly honest here, a three-year old kid with an artistic bent of mind could do better. Add to it the emo-heavy dialogues, which are more of generalised conversation punctuated with the occasional f-word, and there you have it – John Porcellino’s work, which has been described as “some of the most thoughtful, intelligent, sympathetic and, yes, beautiful comix in America.” Feh. I want my money back. Hold on, I didn’t pay any money for it – if I had, I would be really pissed.

Ultimate Spider-man surprises me, and not in a good way. Brian Bendis had a winner on his hands when he started out – carte blanche with the Spider-man mythos, an artist like Mark Bagley – there were places he could have gone, things he could have done – instead, I find that Ultimate Spider-man has become a “which new villain is being updated for the Ultimate Universe”-chapter every month. The whole Ultimate-ization was meant to be a chance to new readers to hop onto the convoluted Marvel universe without being overwhelmed by all the characters. Well and good. But when you start doing tricks like bringing in characters like Moon Knight for five issues without any explanation of what’s going on and who Moon Knight is – the whole purpose is slightly defeated, to say the least. Two years ago, I would have recommended USM whole-heartedly to anyone who’s getting into comics and wants to read good superhero stuff. Today, I will probably ask him to go read…I dunno…Hitman, maybe while I ponder on the assheadedness of naming the High School principal Ross Andru or an innocent bystander in Chinatown Taki Soma.

There is the occasional gem, like the issue in which Mary-Jane goes on a post-breakup date – the last page, one full page splash of Mary-Jane looking straight into Mark Raxton’s eyes and explaining, in a single word, what’s so special about Peter Parker. That page is in itself good enough for me to give USM a chance. But yeah, I think it’s all going to go downhill once Bendis leaves – issue 110, just about 7 more issues to go.

This rant courtesy the weekend reread of issues 1-59, and the subsequent download-cum-read of issues 60-96.

Which also reminds me – I gave in and bought a page from Ultimate Spiderman. The second appearance of Ultimate Green Goblin, all the way from issue 5. I know the guy who owns the first appearance of UGG, and ..who knows…he might be willing to part with it someday. Mark Bagley’s art, oh boy oh boy. I need a splash from USM. And a babe page. Definitely a babe page. Black Cat vs Elektra, maybe. Or Gwen and Mary Jane. Ooooh, possibilities!

The Fables cover went for 15000$ and change.

I…I can’t think of anything else to say.

If you are interested in reading the first arc of Brian Michael Bendis/Michael Oeming’s Powers, called ‘Who Killed Retro Girl’, and do not have access to a torrent, you can read the whole arc online at newsarama.com. The site, in collaboration with the creators, put up a page a day the last couple of months and have just got done with the storyline. David Mack’s Kabuki: Circle of Blood, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Criminal are the other series being posted there on a daily basis.

The Dark Tower comics are out. Marvel comics did a Harry Potterish midnight release of the first issue in a number of comicbook stores, with writer Peter David (Yeah, Stephen King was just a consultant on the series) and artistJae Lee being in attendance in NY. Comic art dealer Albert Moy has put up the original pencilled pages up for sale on his site, and the full page spreads are already sold out. And they cost a lot too. Bah!

Now that I am on a complete Eduardo Risso trip following my 100 Bullets reread, this bit of news gives me a lot of enthusiasm. Apparently, this comic book called Borderline, one of Risso’s earlier releases in Argentina along with writer Carlos Trillo, is being translated and released in the US. Mmmmmm bueno!

Speaking of 100 Bullets, I got them in a recent hamper of comics that landed at home. One more of Brady’s Bunch ( couldn’t resist) that contained Planetary 1-25 and the three specials, 100 Bullets 1-77, a near-complete run of Hellblazer and Sandman Mystery Theatre, the first 6 trades of Invincible, the first two volumes of Path of the Assassin, another run of Samurai Executioner ( I already had ’em), all issues of Ex Machina until a few months ago. There’s one more package due to come, in three months. Phew!

Of these, I am done with Invincible which I had followed on scans until about issue 12. Dammit, the story just keeps getting better and better. This is the comic to pass on to people who bitch and moan about how bad superhero comics have gotten ( note: people like me, that is ). This was the perfect antidote to the bad taste of books like Batman: Face the Face – I swear the Batman books just keep becoming worse and worse every year.

I reread Planetary as well, just because I felt like it. Done with 70 issues of 100 Bullets, have decided to go slow on the latest ones just for the heck of it. Will not read Hellblazer now, I think, and wait until the complete trades come in. Ditto Sandman Mystery Theatre. Next read will probably be Path of the Assassin. Which happens to be another Kazuo Koike/Goseki Kojima collaboration reprinted by Dark Horse comics. Both Samurai Executioner and Lone Wolf and Cub were about samurai during the Edo period, the time when Tokugawa Ieyasu established the shogunate in Japan. Path of the Assassin deals with Masanari, the youngest of three sons of the chief of the Matsduaira clan – who is entrusted with a responsibility. He has to be shadow guardian to Jiro Motonobu, the future clan leader who is being kept under virtual house-arrest by the reigning emperor. What is known, partly because history tells us so, is that Motonobu goes on to unite Japan and take on the name Ieyasu, while Masanari becomes the famous warrior known as Hattori Hanzo. I am interested in seeing how the fifteen-volume series pans out. Of course I will buy all of them, idjit! It’s Koike-Kojima – whaddya think? The packaging of the book remains the same as the previous two series, with one major change – there is no left-to-right mirroring of the manga, it’s meant to be read in reverse, like the originals.

I didn’t buy the Wounded Man and Crying Freeman books that were on eBay. Not regretting it. Not.