Poetry and Powers

by John Holbo on December 21, 2006

Our Scott has unleashed impressive versificational forces (here and here). In comments, Adam Roberts suggests we try to get The Crooked Timber Littel Booke of Political, Philosophical and Scientifik Limerics out by X-Mas. I am duty-bound to report that I have already written A Philosophical Abecedarium, if somehow you managed to miss it back in 2002. I invite new contributions. (I’ve got two ‘k’s, so I might as well have dupes for the others.)

And let me take this opportunity to continue my occasional series of comics recommendations. In this thread, everyone piped up with faves, but no one mentioned Powers, by Bendis and Oeming. It’s more or less a cop procedural, with the protagonists as ordinary human officers responsible for investigating ‘Powers’-related crimes. You can imagine how that might get amusing. The hard-boiled dialogue is just great. And, in fact, you can read the entire first story arc – Who Killed Retro Girl? – here. (The navigation is a bit confusing. Most of the apparent links are just for jokey decoration. Click on the little ‘click here’ button in the Retro Girl box at the top. That takes you here. Then click the small, ochre ‘full daily page archive’ button on the left. Then pull down the little pull-down thingy to start at the beginning, rather than with today’s offering – which is p. 110. Whew! Now you just keep clicking ‘next’ through all 110 pages. You probably would have figured that out yourself.) Some of the pages are more full-featured, with links to pages of the original script, sketches and such. For fanboys.

The first year of the series – a whopping 450 pages worth – is available very cheaply: Powers, vol. 1 [amazon]. Good deal.

{ 6 comments }

1

John Holbo 12.21.06 at 11:52 pm

No comments? (sniff)

2

sam 12.22.06 at 3:30 am

Well if you’re going to get all sad…

I’m surprised that no one in the last thread mentioned a couple of things, particluarly Charles Burns’ Black Hole which is, for my money, the best comic I’ve ever read (and I’ve read most of the ones people mention as classics)…

For good entertainment (in a sort of Graham Greene sense) Brian K. Vaughn’s Y the Last Man is fantastic fun, though not finished yet. Also Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, a manga by Miyazaki who directed the movie of the same name as well as spirited away and many others. The books are much better and go far beyond the movie and aren’t well known in the states (also a bit hard to get a hold of)…

3

John Holbo 12.22.06 at 7:51 am

Yes, “Black Hole” is extremely good. I prefer Vaughn’s “Ex Machina” and “The Runaways” to “Y the Last Man”, but I’ve actually only read the first volume of “Last Man”. Which didn’t really do it for me.

4

Matt Weiner 12.24.06 at 10:04 am

I just read all 112 pages of that powers thing. I comment this to make you happy.

5

John Holbo 12.24.06 at 10:16 am

Good! You have made me happy! It’s a good comic, isn’t it!

6

Matt Weiner 12.24.06 at 12:20 pm

It is. But you know, it doesn’t look to me like the story arc is over yet.

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