“...any institution that prioritizes cashing the checks over calling out the evil is no longer an arts organization. It's a reputation-laundering firm with a well-read board.“ 💅🏼
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“...any institution that prioritizes cashing the checks over calling out the evil is no longer an arts organization. It's a reputation-laundering firm with a well-read board.“ 💅🏼
so-soNot much Batman in this volume of Batman: Urban Legends, but enough Batfam to tide me over.
I don't have any real connection with the Outsiders characters so I didn't feel very engaged in their two stories, but I loved seeing:
Tim Drake figuring things out with Bernard and Batman
Batwoman/Oracle popping up all over the place
Riddler getting chased by Killer Croc 1/?
I sense much of this book is going to stick with me, this passage in particular. An important question.
“She is made of dreaming.“
pickAgain so in awe of an author's prowess that I'm scrambling to come up with the words to properly praise their writing.
There is no better way to understand Gay's skill than reading her essays (articles? These were all originally published in column form) first hand. This is a marvelous collection for any attention span as most entries are around three pages and none over ten. 1/?
Today's 'scratched my brain just right' sentence.
pickExactly what I wanted, a modern feminist lens on the Greek goddesses. Really fills the niche I was missing after reading that collection of tragic plays and feeling so alienated by the lack of such considerations in the accompanying essays.
While she covers the classics by speaking on a selection of well known myths on certain goddesses, I love that Haynes also includes 1/?
Okay, but a horror film with the Olympians as the threats sounds AMAZING. 🤩
pickI would find a great deal of hope in discovering this book was part of school curriculums. I think this graphic version is that much more impactful and approachable in providing a balance of text and well chosen art and images without losing any of the message.
It's pragmatic, concise and somehow imbued with hope.1/?
pickAnother stellar entry in the series. While I'm gleeful to continue on to see how various characters develop further in the next book, I'm also relieved to have certain answers and see certain arcs completed in this one.
As I've come to expect, there are bonkers happenings, heartbreakingly human moments, and some damn creepy shit. 1/?
*Snrk* 🤭 Haynes is having such a good time, and so am I!
pickI am relieved to say this book is not nearly as creepy as the cover suggests. Though of course if it meant to imply a serious tone, then it is warranted.
Certainly there's some heavy material, child soldiers radicalized by a militia, a cult leader passing himself off as a parental figure.
The questions around the sentience and the agency, rights, of androids, machines who think, and feel, who challenge the definition of machine.1/?
I may be casting a cynical eye in the direction of 'agents' aiding in traumatized child placement, but “nonviolent solutions“ sound like a very good idea!
so-soOkay, so it feels important to state first that I do not regularly read dystopian fiction. Quite palpably, the author does not want this book described as such, but based on the plot and the definition of the word, I haven't got a better one.
On my better days, I think I avoid reading dystopian fiction because I want to save my mental energy for ensuring real life doesn't turn out that way 1/?
“Dystopia: an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.“
Having a cognitive dissonance moment.
Discworld cameo? 🦆
pickMy memories of the other volume I've read in this series were that it was made up of more stories, but having this volume split into just two told in multiple parts meant fuller, more nuanced tales. The first one was rough for a lot of reasons, I've attempted to skirt around narratives involving Jason's death ever since I saw Under the Red Hood, and this one does touch on that,it's also about drug addiction and neglected, even abused, children 1/?
Goth gymnast! Ice Dancer!
Grifter basically banters with everyone, but I swear it sounds like he's flirting when it's Batman and trash-talking when it's Nightwing. 😅
so-soWell, I just found out the thing I'm even less prepared for than an ending which seems to offer no hope or redemption, is one that makes you think it will be somewhat happy and then turns out to be a lie.
If you felt blank after Death of the Author, if you felt angry after Atonement, I don't think you're going to like this ending. 1/?
And this is why I always eventually find my way back to poetry, because there are those that make me “feel like a comet had just screamed across the sky“...“
pickLove, love, love, love, love it! I'm incredibly biased, but this is officially my favourite comics run, ever. I think I'm actually going to own it which, if you knew my teeny tiny library space, says a lot.
I didn't want this run to end, but I do like how it did.
That mix of Batfam moments, and being hopeful about the future and getting help from friends, even among the bad guys and brutalities, 1/2
“...anger is an entirely appropriate response to bigotry, systemic bias, and injustice...They want the airing of opinions to be nothing more than a harmless intellectual exercise. And I suppose, for those whose lives are not materially affected by the issues on which they opine, that might be possible.“ 💅🏼🙄
Never seen someone be so eloquent while also be 1000% done at the same time.
“Dictionaries, he explained, were records of the language, AS IT IS USED...“[emphasis added 😁]
👏🏻🙌🏻
Well that phrase is going to stay with me...
“What began, centuries ago, as a healthy safeguard against projection had become an insidious contributor to human exceptionalism...“ 🤨🙎🏼♂️
so-soWhat happens when you try to do TOO MANY THINGS! I lost count of the amount of stories that either started in the middle, or were cut off before the ending, with a little tag saying: see this issue of this other comic!
I can deal with a run that involves an arc continuing over multiple issues but this was like the trunk of a tree with too many branches. It involves a dizzying array of different superheroes 1/?
pickThanks go to Panda Redd for making me aware of this one's existence. Sure it's dark, sad and gorey, but it's also a rollicking bop though classic literature, (the Little Women kick Deadpool's ass: I appreciate this) and the recognition that a) The comic book characters we know best have some powerful antecedents b) stories matter 1/2
Delicious long candy for Hoppy, the naughty talking rabbit! ,🔌🍭🍬😋😆
panNope. When I go into a book knowing there's a semi-absurd premise, something where you're going to work extra hard to suspend disbelief and not think too hard about the details, I'm looking for the result to be charming or meaningful. I feel like this book didn't manage either.
Started out thinking it could have been a novella, now convinced that amount of plot and original rumination minus the redundancies would have fit in a short story. 1/?
so-soThere's weird, and then there's stuff you thought you'd only read on A03.
Starts with a catchy premise, written well, continues into some unexpected but interesting fare, tackling some difficult subjects, while unfortunately, if perhaps predictably, given the topics, being kind of unrelentingly grim. Without going into spoilers, I can say with confidence , if you don't want to read about cults, don't pick this up. 1/?
pickMarvelous! I'd say it leans a little closer to noir than Marple, just a bit more snappy and sexy (not to mention joyfully queer) in tone than the Christie classics, but there are definitely a plethora of cozy mystery moments. I'm gleeful that it's becoming a series.1/?
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