I am afraid the new Internet connection at home (it’s been a month now) is taking its toll on my reading. Reading, as in real, true-to-life, turn-the-page-and-run-eyes-over-the-printed word kind of reading. There’s another kind of reading that’s thriving, I will get to that soon enough.<\/p>\n
So, for almost a month now, I haven’t read any book. The Secret History of The Oscars <\/em>lies on my bed, with a bookmark that moves forward at the rate of, oh, say four pages a week. There’s also Movie-Made America <\/em>by Robert Sklar, something I began just before Madhav’s quiz, and I haven’t moved ahead of Chapter 3. Oh, and the unread five hundred odd books in the cupboard and the unopened cupboard.<\/p>\n Come to think of it, I also haven’t played any computer games. The virus attack on the second day of the connection caused me to reformat a major section of my hard drive, in particular the E: drive, that had all the games installed on it. My saved-games (the levels to which I had played whatever games I had installed) are all backed up in some cd, and I have to go look for it sometime. But (sigh) who wants to sit through another game installation, when you can …..uh….download comics?<\/p>\n Download, and read<\/em> comics, of course.<\/p>\n Recent downloads: Complete runs of The Crow (Kitchen Sink Press, Image), Powers (Image), Tom Strong ( America’s Best Comics), Hellboy ( Dark Horse), Bite Club(Vertigo), Vamps (Vertigo), Battle Royale (Tokyopop), The Legend of Kamui (Viz), Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind (Viz), American Flagg(First), Dicks(Avatar), District X(Marvel Max), Punisher(Marvel Max), Ichi The Killer:The Manga, Daredevil: The Bendis. Of course, loads of other assorted bits and ends.<\/p>\n Ancient Beatzoian history department: The first two manga titles I read in my life were an issue of Mai The Psychic Girl<\/i> by Ryoichi Ikegami and Xenon: Heavy Metal Warrior<\/i> by Masaomi Kanzaki. Towards the end of the Xenon comic, there was a beautiful ad of comicbook in which a guy with a sword was upside down in the air, and busy cleaving some unlucky bugger’s head into two pieces. The Legend of Kamui<\/i>, the book read, by Sanpei Shiroto. I remember writing down the name of the writer in one of those personal diaries I had ( I had quite a few, most of them outdated diaries that were gifted to my father and were later fished out for use by me ). Eight years later, I finally got to read The Legend of Kamui<\/i> thanks to Bit-torrent. <\/p>\n I read the original Crow series by James O’ Barr with Graeme Revell’s background score from the movie playing in the background.<\/p>\n Bendis and Maleev’s Daredevil<\/i>, although a little overrated, was a real space-bar hitter ( somehow, “page-turner” doesn’t seem to fit).<\/p>\n Obligatory disclaimer: To those concerned about my ripping off creators of their much-deserved rewards for their work, I can vouch for the fact that I am buying all the stuff that I read in digital format and loved ( and some stuff I didn’t entirely<\/i> love, but got for cheap). The Authority series is one such example – I read 29 issues in one night, drove vrikodhara<\/a> up the wall until he read the twelve issues the same night, and the next day, placed my bid on Richard’s lot on eBay. Most of the mainstream comics (Hush<\/i>, The Ultimates<\/i> and the rest of the Ultimate line are being reprinted in India anyways, though very slowly ), and I will be buying the other stuff by and by, as and when I have the money or (highly unlikely) find them in Indian stores.<\/p>\n Didn’t I tell you about the other kind of reading? This is it. The CBR format is going to be the savior of the Third World, as far as comics are concerned.<\/p>\n