Reading List: March 2009

I must apologize for the lack of content here over the past few weeks. This point in the semester is always busy, and when you add stress from the rest of your life in there seems to be none left over for side pursuits such as this. It's not that I haven't read good books or seen some good movies, it's just that I am too tired to really formulate any sustained opinions to post here.

Completed a big presentation this evening on Joseph Mankiewicz's All about Eve for my class on Film and Feminism which went reasonably well. Despite my reservations about the subject, I am finding that film criticism may be an outlet for scholarly work for me in the future. Still have no idea what my seminar paper will concern, but I am thinking of comparing Frank Miller's Sin City comics with film noir movies, then analyze the Sin City movie with these observations. However, that may be more research than I would care to do.

Anyway, I read 25 books and/or graphic novels last month, the best of which was likely Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution, something anyone interested in the film business should probably take a look at. I also finished up the released books in Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming's Powers comic series, which is fantastic, a must read for even so-so superhero fans. Here's what they were:

• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• Astro City: Local Heroes by Kurt Busiek & Eric Anderson
• God Save the Fan by Will Leitch
• Powers: Forever; Legends; Psychotic; Cosmic; Secret Identity by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming
• Rickles' Book by Don Rickles with David Ritz
• Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger
• Preacher: Dixie Fried; War in the Sun; Salvation; All Hell's A-Coming by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
• Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris
• Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham, et al.
• Box Office Poison; BOP! [More Box Office Poison] by Alex Robinson
• Time and Human Language Now by Jonathan Boyarin & Martin Land
• Sin City: The Big Goodbye by Frank Miller
• The Lemur by Benjamin Black
• Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
• The History of Sexuality: An Introduction by Michel Foucault
• DMZ: Friendly Fire by Brian Wood & Riccardo Burchielli
• The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball

Now that I am caught up with Powers and almost done with Preacher, who knows what I will end up reading. Of course, I promised to finish The Satanic Verses by now and I'm not even close, which I hopefully will get back to after I finish Thomas Geoghegan's latest. And I hope that this forum will see a bit more activity this month as well.