What I'm Reading: Roundup

Hark! A Vagrant This is a collection of comic strips by Kate Beaton, who creates erudite, smart-ass, and occasionally foul-mouthed comics revolving around historical and literary themes. Let me use our new scanner to give you an example, this one from King Lear.

Pretty funny, right? Her cartoons have appeared in the New Yorker and other publications. So if smart-ass and foul-mouthed New Yorker comics sound as awesome to you as they do to me, you'll probably enjoy this book. I understand she has a new collection coming out in the near future, as well.

Island This is a new comic anthology series published in magazine format. The editor of this project is Brandon Graham, who did the art on the revival of the Prophet series, which I reviewed here. As you might expect from that, this could be characterized as weird science fiction. Other artists taking part include Emma Rios, Farel Dalrymple, and many others. I think my favorite story so far was Simon Roy’s piece on a floating space station where humanity has regressed to the stone age, but with remnants of technology still around. Ludroe's story about a skateboarding mummy was also fun.

The Spire I’m a sucker for giant, intricate, labyrinthine cities/buildings and the adventures that take place in them, so I've really been enjoying this new fantasy comic series. As per usual in this type of series, the elite humans live on the top level of the humongous Spire, while the less-privileged immigrant outlanders, who seem to be various types of monstrous humanoids, populate the lower levels. One of those less-privileged, Sha, has risen to be head of the Queen's guard, and she's investigating a series of murders that seem to involve the very highest ranks of Spire society. Well-written and with lots of fascinating little world-building details.