Non-Fiction:
- Marionettes by Edith Flack Ackley. Puppets! This is another book mostly meant for kids and people working with kids, but it also has good basic information, plus patterns for making cloth doll marionettes. I've temporarily set aside my paper mache marionette project and now have a sewn-but-not-yet-stuffed cloth one. It's black cotton and will have hair of this wonderful hand-spun, hand-dyed, multicoloured wool I bought at a craft fair last year. I don't know what the rest of it will look like, but I'm thinking of getting a round compact mirror and using it for a mask.
Sequential Art:
- Morgana Volume 1: Heaven's Gate by Alberti and Enoch. I kept looking at this book every time I went into the local comic shop. The cover art is truly gorgeous (and so, as it turns out, is the interior art). Finally, I decided to buy it. This is what I was referring to in the title of this blogpost--it's translated from French. Now, I haven't read a lot of French comics, but every one I have read has been pretty amazing. The art is just beautiful and the writing seems to tend to the weird-but-really-good. Morgana is a sort of science-fantasy with occasional Arthurian echoes. It's short, but damn do I want to read more. Alas, I'll have to order it online, probably, as this was the only volume Collector's Choice had, and more than likely the only one they'll ever have. I'm rather suprised they had it at all. They tend to only get in stuff that will sell quickly, which is why it's a good place to find the latest InuYasha but not a good place to look for the latest Girl Genius. So yeah, I'll be looking for more of this, and more French comics in general. In fact, I may attempt to dust off and upgrade my highschool French, and have a go at reading some in its original language.
- Cardcaptor Sakura: Master of the Clow volume 1 (aka Cardcaptor Sakura volume 7) by CLAMP. I've been waiting for the local shop to get this in for months. I actually asked them to order it for me, but I guess they forgot (I don't have a file there, so maybe I'm not a priority). So at last I get to find out what happens next (well, I have seen the entire Card Captors anime series, but it was pretty heavily edited and changed around when it was brought to North American television, so it's almost like getting a new story).
- Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 3 by CLAMP. I am quite enjoying this alternate-universe-Cardcaptors (sort of) story. It's pretty girly at times, but I'm old enough that being girly isn't the horror it used to be (no, I was definitely not a girly girl--"girly-girl" was the highest of insults when I was young thing--I was a tree-climbing, snake-handling tomboy, though I've never wanted to be an actual boy).
- Eerie Queerie! volume 2 by Shuri Shiozu. I had to go to the comic shop in Nanaimo to find this. I suspect Duncan isn't really a gay-friendly town, though they did have copies of Fake (a title I haven't read yet) at the local shop. I still think they should have kept the Japanese title (Ghost!), but for some reason, I really like this series.
- Until the Full Moon by Sanami Matoh. Another one I had to get in Nanaimo (for possibly the same reason). I'd really been looking forward to it (that whole werewolf obsession, maybe), so I was a bit disappointed. It's not bad, and I probably will read volume 2, but it seemed pretty shallow. It was much more like the standard romance novel, plotwise, than I'd thought it would be (you know: main character is madly attracted to love interest, but also detests him, various things happen--possibly including a rescue--and in the end they fall in love and live happily ever after). (Er, yes, I have read a few romance novels, because I don't want to be accused of berating a genre I've never read. It's possible that there are good genre romance novels out there . . . I guess.) Anyway, the "boy who turns into a girl during the full moon" thing doesn't really seem to be used as well as it could have, or hardly at all, really. And the two characters admit right from the beginning that they're mad for each other. There just seems to be a series of trivial things coming between them. I'd rather have seen Marlo's gender confusion explored in greater depth than have him get kidnapped and wait around to be rescued (and that story was resolved way too easily, in my opinion; I mean, why not explore the idea of two non-blood-related people raised as siblings, who fall in love?). I guess the point I'm trying to make (and using too many words to do it) is that this book had a lot of potential that was wasted in favour of fairly trivial episodes. But still, I did like it enough to read the next book. I don't know if I'd bother if it was going to be more than two volumes, though.
Once I actually get my NSCAD application and portfolio done and sent off, I may actually have more time for reading (er . . . maybe when I get as far ahead on Fey as I'd like to be). I really don't enjoy having only minimal reading time. Sometimes I think I could actually live without writing as long as I could still read lots. Of course, if I hadn't bought a Gameboy and got hooked on The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, I'd have a little more time. It's probably a very good thing I'm only a casual gamer, and not a total game geek.
And something totally unrelated to anything: I wish the folks who designed the standard qwerty keyboard hadn't put "o" and "0" so close together. It confuses the spellchecker when I make a typ0. Heh.
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