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Graphic Novels & ComicsMarch 2014
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GREETINGS! My name is Patrick, and I'm a librarian at Southwest Regional Library. I'm also a lifelong reader of comics and graphic novels. Check out the contents of this month's newsletter in the box to the right. I hope you find these recommendations worthwhile, and please email me at pdholt@dconc.gov if you have any thoughts or questions. Thanks and enjoy!
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New Titles at the Library (extended cut!)
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Nowhere Men vol. 1: Fates Worse Than Death
by Eric Stephenson, Nate Bellegarde and Jordie Bellaire
The grave consequences of four celebrity scientists' life work are at the center of this excellent book, in which a small group of astronauts are apparently infected with a deadly disease with no cure and nowhere to go. Writer Stephenson expertly merges a host of familiar sci-fi tropes -- robots, clones, teleportation, mad scientists, physical transformation -- into an intriguing story of corporate espionage and life-or-death action, while artists Bellegarde and Bellaire create believable characters and the compelling world where they live and die. Highly recommended!
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Zombo: You Smell of Crime and I'm the Deodorant!
by Al Ewing
Says Comic Book Resources: "From the significantly warped minds of Al Ewing (Mighty Avengers) and Henry Flint (Judge Dredd, Haunted Tank) comes the crime-fighting cadaver, the unusual undead, the rather queer revenant - ZOMBO! With weaponised zombies, mega-brained pop music moguls, the minds of male strippers transplanted into the undead, war-happy padres, rubbish super teams, blue cone-headed super-bands, and a titanic clash between Earth and the Death Planet (literally), you have never read anything like this before!"
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Great Pacific vol. 1: Trashed!
by Joe Harris
Ambitious young playboy Chas Worthington gives up the Texas oil fortune he's inherited for a pile of trash -- specifically the massive Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an ever-growing (and more-or-less real-life) floating continent of the world's refuse -- and claims it as a sovereign nation, only to find he's not alone in this island anti-paradise. A unique adventure story with political intrigue, sci-fi, and well-crafted artwork that falls somewhere between East of West and The Manhattan Projects.
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Incidents in the Night.
by David B.
Another entry into David' B's compelling bibliography, Incidents in the Night sees a semi-fictional David B. fall into a rabbit hole of personal research, tracking down the Napoleonic creator of a literary journal known as (what else?) Incidents in the Night. Labyrinthine bookshops, Sumerian gods, disfigured ghosts and ghastly murders chase him further into this surrealistic abyss, all drawn in the cartoonist's trademark art style, a combination of Franco-Belgian clear line and ancient and medieval drawing from around the world. Recommended!
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Fairest: In All the Land
by Bill Willingham
Super-spy Cinderella is in a race against time to find a serial killer who's targeting Fabletown's fairest maidens: Rose Red, Snow White, Bo Peep, and more. This welcome addition to the Fables series features Bill Willingham's reliably clever approach to interweaving fairy tales, and as an added bonus, each chapter uses a different artist and manages to avoid the disjointed feeling that usually results from this gimmick.
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Birds of Prey, vol. 3: A Clash of Daggers
by Duane Swierczynski
Says the publisher: "The Birds of Prey lose one member but gain another in these tales from issue #13-17 and Batgirl Annual #1, all while the team itself is pulled apart by personal demons and a traitor in their midst."
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Arrow, vol. 1
by Marc Guggenheim
A tie-in to the CW television show (which itself is an adaptation/reboot of the main character's long-running story-lines), Arrow is the gritty, contemporary story of Oliver Queen, better known as the masked vigilante The Green Arrow. The stories in this volume will appeal most to fans of the show because the fill in its gaps and flesh out its characters a bit, but the comic's high tension, well-timed action, and atypical artwork will surely find a place in any superhero-reader's heart.
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Prose Corner -- Books About Comics
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Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists, 1896-2013
by Trina Robbins
Cartoonist and comics historian Trina Robbins has put together this excellent volume documenting the history of women working in the comics industry in North America from comics' earliest days through to the current world of graphic novels, genre freedom, and web comics. It's an impressively thorough look at the work of women cartoonists, though Spanish-language comics are notably absent, making one wonder about why it's not "American and Canadian Women Cartoonists, and it also seems to exclude any female comics industry, such as colorists and letters, who didn't get top billing. Still, Robbins has done a huge service to comics readers and historians, as well as giving encouragement to women aspiring to work in a field that is still heavily dominated by men. Recommended!k
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Graphic Book Club
Saturday, March 8, 2:00 pm Main Library - 300 Roxboro St. Question? Call John Davis at 919-560-0125
Enjoy comic books or graphic novels? Join us for the monthly meeting of Main Library's Graphic Book Club. This meeting marks the one year anniversary of the club's existence! Read whatever you want, and come ready to share what you've read with us.
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If you are having trouble unsubscribing to this newsletter, please contact the Durham County Library at
919-560-0100, 300 N. Roxoboro Street, Durham, NC 27702
librarywebmaster@durhamcountync.gov
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