Perhaps it’s just because this issue of Ganges is effectively like reliving any of my fairly frequent sleepless nights, but I found this issue kind of unpleasant and frustrating. I mean, I guess that’s the feeling he’s going for, and, on some level, I suppose it’s good to know that other people have the same sorts of thoughts running through their heads while not sleeping, but insomnia is not the sort of experience I feel I need to be experiencing vicariously.

All that said, it’s a lovely looking comic.

Last year, I went on a bit of Finder bender, reading the first six volumes in the course of a couple weeks. Sadly, that was all our local library had, and our local comic shop only had collections I’d already read, so I stopped there. Last time I went to the comic shop, I idly checked to see if they’d ordered any more collections, and was very excited to see they had gotten in both The Rescuers and Five Crazy Women (which I held off on until next visit). If I have a complaint with Finder, it’s that I read them too quickly. It’s not that they’re insufficiently dense (the quantity of background details in any given issue is impressive), but I can’t really stop reading a collection until I’m done with it.

This storyline is loosely based on the Lindbergh kidnapping, but it’s less interested in the whodunit aspects (which is interesting, since the whole setting is reminiscent of a proper English country manor mystery). Jaeger, unexpectedly, already knows who the kidnapper was, so the plot is pretty much superfluous, so it’s really just a background piece for further looks into Ascian society, as well as the life of one of the minor clans. Talisman remains the high point of the series, but this is still pretty great.

Utterly unrelated to the discussion, but I did notice that McNeil’s backgrounds switched from meticulously cross-hatched to smudgy and charcoal-y for a couple installments. I hadn’t noticed such a change in previous volumes, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.

I’ve read this before, but I’ve been working on a screenplay that I felt needed a similar tone to the later bits of the Jasper’s Warp storyline, so I decided to re-read it. I was once again struck by the narrative jump he utilizes here between issues (actually, it’s between titles, as the story switches from appearing in The Daredevils to The Mighty World of Marvel) in which we go from a “heroes prepare for a battle” to “heroes have lost terribly and everyone now lives in concentration camps.” It’s like a movie just jumping from the 1st act to the 3rd, and I find it a really effective tool, especially when combined with the dreamlike distortion of time and perception that the story also involves. There’s something about omitting what should have been a deciding moment, but knowing that it happened, and happened wrong, that really works very well. It’s a trick Moore also uses in Marvelman, so I wonder if he’s lifted it from somewhere else entirely, but it’s very effective.

All right. I was kind of harsh on the first couple volumes of Scalped – the story and characters didn’t grab me, the art was semi-incoherent – but I’ve come around a bit. The Dead Mothers arc is heavy-handed, sure, but it’s also pretty moving. I can almost accept Dash as a human, which helps, and I am starting to accept that the basic premise (which seemed a little over-simple and unsustainable for an ongoing series) is just going to get more convoluted as it goes. It’s not at the same level as other recent crime series (100 Bullets, for instance), but it’s solid and good enough to get me to keep reading it.

While I was reading the Gerber/Skrenes Omega, I could feel the ideal form of the series lurking under a muddled, confused series that mostly consisted of sales-boosting guest stars and inordinate quantities of narration boxes. The first and last issues hinted at a better series, which is clearly what Lethem and Rusnak are trying to get to here. Even though I’m kind of inclined to be prejudiced against them (due to Gerber’s lack of involvement and outright (though later revoked) opposition to the project), I think they do a good job of capturing the original aspects of the premise and actually building a narrative framework around it that works. The ties to the rest of the Marvel universe are largely severed (except for a reference to the Baxter Building), which helps immensely, and gives a much greater leeway for introducing an ever-increasing level of strangeness. Occasionally, Lethem and Rusnak get a little cute (the half-issue or so that is told in song, for instance), but the great redeeming quality is Dalrymple’s art. The coloring was a little odd (though some of that may have been the glossy paper of the collection), but his art was charming and expressive, and I was particularly fond of the primitive style he employed for the pages drawn, in story, by Omega.

I remain really torn on Queen and Country. It’s well-plotted and the art is occasionally quite nice (depending on who’s drawing the arc – I’m actually pretty fond of the one artist per arc format), but it’s hard to get around the fact that Rucka seems a little overly fond of the hard-drinking, self-destructive tough gal. Things get a little more over-the-top here than in previous volumes – I have a hard time believing Chace could drink that much and live – but the real problem is the completely unreferenced storyline that occurs between the two story arcs contained here. After a little research, I figured out that Rucka had written a Queen and Country novel that occurred between the two storylines. You’d think that, in a definitive edition, there could be a short summary or at least a mention of the book. It’s fairly jarring that a character who is missing from the first story (because he has moved to a “less fatal” career path) to die between storylines. Given that the entire second storyline is based on Chace’s fragile emotional state due to the events of the novel, it seems odd not to mention it.

I’ve been putting off reading this last arc for months now, mostly because I can’t really bring myself to let the series go. Y: The Last Man faltered a bit in the middle (when it started feeling a little repetitive), but it was still one of the most consistent series being published. This final group of stories ended up being some of favorites of the series. The one-offs providing follow up on early, incidental characters were a nice way to, among other things, show us how the world has progressed over the time spanned by the series. The wrap up of Yorick’s story, particularly the final issue, was heartbreaking. I will admit to tearing up a little bit at Ampersand’s death (especially since Ampersand was probably my favorite character in the series), and I loved Vaughan’s ongoing commitment to ambiguity regarding the central premise of the series. Even with the flabbiness in the middle of the series, I still think this may be one of the best series of the decade.

When the last issue of this arc came out, I went back and read the whole arc again to see how it held together. I’m still not entirely sure how well this story works. Daniel’s art is not particularly engaging, which is especially disappointing coming off the J.H. Williams III run, but what I think is really causing my ambivalence is my overall fatigue with the psychology of Batman. I’m not sure I really want to read another story about how unhealthy Batman’s behavior is (particularly in regards to the Joker). Morrison is handling it well, but I’m just not that interested.

Also, could someone please explain why Morrison felt a need to finish the arc with a reference to Bendis’ Avengers run? Seems a little beneath him.

I’m starting to get a little more used to Guera’s artwork here, and Aaron seems to have backed off a little bit on the attempt to make Bad Horse as ludicrously tough as possible. The flashback structure of this collection actually managed to get me more interested in the plot than the first volume did. I’m looking forward to the next volume.

I like Stray Bullets and Murder Me Dead quite a lot, so I cannot begrudge Lapham this screenplay pitch in graphic novel form. This is pretty much a dumped-in-Febrary middle of the road thriller, which is fine, and I hope he’s able to sell the movie rights for a significant amount, but it just didn’t impress me the way his previous works did.