I finished the first volume of Cerebus the other day. Each volume of this collected monthly comic is like a little phone book, all newsprint pages and black and white artwork. When I found out the local library carried a number of these volumes, I decided that now was the time to read this epic about a misanthropic aardvark barbarian at long last. Dave Sim, the author and primary artist, is held up in comics circles as the first and loudest voice in self-publishing and creator's rights. He published his little comic for 300 monthly issues - no small feat, that - and shaped what began as a goofy satire of the swords-and-sorcery genre into a sprawling epic that encompasses nearly every genre and explores philosophical and political commentary. Not surprisingly, someone so doggedly motivated to forge their own way in an artistic industry has his share of controversial views; Sim has been accused of misogyny, for example (though apparently he defended it as "anti-feminism"), and leaned toward Muslim beliefs later on in his career. I'm aware of these things only from third-hand accounts, however, and whatever his beliefs and opinions are, probably the best way to explore them is simply to read his work. Whatever the situation, enough people have cited Cerebus as inspirational to their own work, and given that Sim's artistic sensibilities went from crude 70's-style zine work to something resembling Will Eisner's mastery of the craft in the first volume alone, I'm looking forward to reading the entire run.

So now that I've finished that, I'm changing gears and delving into crime-noir in a superhero world - Powers. The author, Brian Michael Bendis, has written a lot in the comics field and is noted for writing some of the best dialogue in comics. The artist, Mike Avon Oeming, has a style very similar to that of Bruce Timm. Given that I'm still working on my old Senior Project - a crime story set in Mexico City, 2012 - I thought it would be a good idea to take a little break from fantasy.

That's all. Nothing really big.

Oh - before I forget, I've added another blog to my list on the right, though I've added it to the "Faith" section. It's called Brad Ellison Reads The Gospels. He's a gamer that I've seen posting on RPGnet who decided to start going through the Gospel of John. He's had a brief hiatus due to starting a new job, but he's just posted promising to get back to it. It's been kind of refreshing to go through John through someone else's eyes.