Midnight Nation by J Michael Straczynski
A graphic novel recommended to me by Pud (a friend), written by the creator of the tv series Babylon 5. A story about falling in between the cracks of society, into the realm of the forgotten. I enjoyed this book, but it was very much a comic book. As in to say, it was cheesy in a lot of parts, but it’s the kind of cheese that only comic books can get away with. If it was ever turned into a movie or a series, it’d most likely be crap. I did feel the book had fallen short of its true potential though. I sensed from page one that this was trying to be a dark and twisted story, but it really didn’t quite get there. It was as if it was walking down the path heading towards ‘dark and twisted’ and then half way there, it stopped for a tea break and some of those cucumber sandwiches, then took a nap that it never woke up from. Also, it suffers from ‘bad-guy monologue’ syndrome lol not that it wasn’t an interesting monologue, but I still wound up skipping a few pages. Story still made sense after that, which goes to show that the monologue moment, may have been a bit of a pointless, pretentious moment really. It’s a trap all writers sometimes fall into. I myself have been victim to this a few times.

Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale
A collection of a short Batman one-shot mini-series. I’ll tell you right now, I really hated the artwork in this. It’s typical DC bullshit artwork. It’s all too simple and rushed. The colouring is the same. Each chapter looks like something someone threw together in 2 weeks, and they probably did. Because DC is an industry and they make money by churning out comic after comic with weak artwork. Ok, so now the story. It was ok. Just ok really. To be honest, I was just sick of one thing they threw into this comic. All the Batman bad guys break out or Arkham, yet again. All the Batman bad guys come at batman and he takes them down one at a time, yet again. This has been done so many times in these mini-series, it’s practically become a cliche. In fact, it is a cliche. This is a cliche comic.

The Lurkers by Steve Niles & Hector Casanova
You may remember Steve Niles from the comic 30 Days of Night. If you’ve never heard of that comic, well, it’s being made into a movie. 30 Days of Night was just a short vampire horror story. It was kinda neat to read. Steve Niles likes to write somewhat traditional horror shorts. Lurkers is very much the same in that sense. It’s about ghouls (weee). I quite enjoyed it and I didn’t delve too deep into it as it’s not the kind of story that needs to be dissected really. It’s pretty straight forward and it’s just a bit of fun. It’s not trying to be anything more than what it is. The pacing is pretty good and the artwork by Mr. Casanova (what a fantastic name) was really cool. Although, my only grudge against the artwork, is that it was really too dark in a lot of the book. I thought it was my lighting for a while. Tried reading it in different rooms and even at the office to see if it made a difference lol but other than that, it was an enjoyable read. Ghouls man! Ghouls!!

The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett
This one is a novel. No, not written by the guy from Quantum Leap, that was Sam Beckett and that was a terrible joke, you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it! Anyway, can’t say too much about this one, cos I only just started reading it. I’ve seen posters for it on the underground and it peaked my interest. When I was out to watch ‘Brick’ in the cinema, I passed by a book store and decided to go in and pick it up while I was there. It’s set in the UK countryside (which is something I’m not really keen on to be honest) but I’m willing to let that go as it’s pretty well written so far. The first few pages open with an explanation of what happens to a decomposing body, the process it breaks down in. Morbid but interesting. It’s why I’m such a fan of the CSI tv show.

That’s pretty much it. I figured I should write an update of some kind, so what better way than to share some reading interests eh?