Last weekend, I went down to Chicago for the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con. I didn’t quite know what to expect; while I am fairly nerdy, I am not nearly as intense about comic books as some people. I had a surprisingly wonderful time, and I met some fantastic people.
I also have a confession: I don’t really read that many comic books. However, I think this is about to change, as I got to talk to some artists and writers who inspired me to pick up some of these great reads.
Some of these are webcomics, too, which I think is great. I love webcomics because they usually have online communities attached to them, and we all know how much I love the Internet.
Here are some comics I highly recommend. I will probably do another post like this in the next week or so, in addition to posting some video interviews I conducted with artists/authors/creators last weekend.
“Oh Goodie!” by S.P. Burke
In addition to being one of the nicest guys on the planet, S.P. Burke is an extremely talented
S.P. Burke
artist, writer, and comedian. “Oh Goodie!” is about a teenager, James, who is in a band called The Filthy F@#$ing Fairies. The drummer is a panda, named Panda. The bassist is named Maestro, and he doesn’t talk. But aside from the awesome humor of the comic, there’s also a serious message about censorship and self-expression in high school and beyond. Burke manages to fit all of this into a strip that, on average, is around three panels long. Read it now.
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Posted in The Reading Life | Tagged Comics, Webcomics | 3 Comments »
August 23, 2010 by Cory Kitt
Editor’s note: Palahniuk is pronounced PAUL-AH-NIK (Paula Nick).
Chuck Palahniuk is best known as the author who wrote the book Fight Club. A movie of the same name, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, was released in 1999. I first saw this movie
Chuck Palahniuk
about six months after the original US release and hated it. I later learned to like it. It wasn’t until several years later that I even realized it was a book and was curious to see if it followed the movie. It did, quite nicely, and I became hooked on the dark, graphic stories slightly inspired by Palahniuk’s real life experiences. (Fight Club is said to be inspired by Palahniuk’s involvement in the Cacophony Society while at the University of Oregon. The Cacophony Society was dedicated to experiencing things outside of the mainstream and performing large-scale pranks in public places, like Project Mayhem in the novel.) There also seems to be great psychological twists that accompany each of Palahniuk’s novels that make the context of the whole story change as in Fight Club.
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Posted in Authors I Love | Tagged Fiction | 2 Comments »
On this episode, Brandon and I talk about the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, and the recent movie adaptation. Get ready for geekery!
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Posted in Podcast Book Club | Tagged Graphic novels, Scott Pilgrim, Geekery | Leave a Comment »
August 16, 2010 by Cory Kitt
Editor’s note:
Welcome to a new feature on DNBRD! Life has been insane lately, so I’ve recruited some amazing, smart, funny people to help me out a bit. I hope you enjoy the new energy they’re going to add to the site!
–AL
As far as dystopian novels go, the most popular for the general reading population have been 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. While these are all great novels, unfortunately, they are all male-driven–male main characters in male-dominated societies. And then, there is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.This female-directed story takes place in some unspecified period of time (presumably in the future) where women’s rights have been completely restricted and the “handmaid’s” primary duty is to be a surrogate for higher-ups who are struggling with conception. The story follows one handmaid by the name of Offred (Of Fred, her commander). Her story wanders between her previous life in the United States of America and this new society.
What makes this story so amazing and wonderful and frightening is that many of the morals and values of this new society are leftover from the United States but twisted in a way that would make any feminist cringe… something that could actually happen in our lifetime. It’s written by a woman from the point of view of a woman in this oppressed society; again, something that is not often done in the genre of dystopian novels. And the ending, whoooo boy, the ending. While many might be disappointed by the ending, as I first was, rereading it allowed me to admire the ending for allowing the reader to imagine what became of all the characters. The ending also puts the rest of the story in a completely different context which compels the reader to read it again. And to me, any good book is worth rereading.
For some more dystopian novels you might enjoy, see this list, this article from the Guardian, and this Wikipedia entry.
Have you read The Handmaid’s Tale? Let us know in the comments!
Posted in My Favorite Book | Tagged Fiction, Dystopia, Science Fiction | 4 Comments »
On this volume, Brandon and I talk about non-fiction that’s more exciting than fiction! And if you want to give us your podcast ideas, send us an email at . Thanks!
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