I read Banana Yoshimoto’s Hardboiled & Hard Luck a few years ago and hated it but decided to give her another shot - maybe I just picked the wrong book? So I gave Dead-end Memories, her 2003 short story collection published in English for the first time this year, a chance and… nope! I just don’t think this writer is for me unfortunately.
Gabby inherits her aunt’s cattle ranch and leaves the big city behind to set up in the country with her wife Trudy. It’s an idyllic place - except for the ghosts, monsters, UFOs, poltergeists, a bottomless pit, and a terrifying figure that stalks the woods called The Horned Man. They also have a new ranch hand around who’s not who he says he is. Yeah… they’re quickly gonna hate this place.
You know how you can tell a bad movie when the credits play at the start and under the writing credits you see dozens of names? Same rule applies to comics, particularly Head Wounds: Sparrow - look at this mess that’s on the cover: Oscar Isaac Presents, Created by Robert Johnson, Developed by Oscar Isaac and Jason Spire, Story by Robert Johnson and John Alvey, Written by Brian Buccellato.
French writer Annie Ernaux had a brief affair with an Eastern European man (named only “A.”) in the ‘80s when she was middle-aged, and describes the lifespan of the relationship in Simple Passion, a short book from the early ‘90s.
Edward Nashton is a desperately unhappy forensic accountant who uncovers a shady account - that his boss then tells him to ignore, unless he wants to lose his job. Something’s rotten in the state of Gotham… but, to Edward’s delight, a bat-shaped beacon seems to signal change in the blighted city. He and the Batman - they’re gonna be besties right???
Megg and Werewolf Jones are - Horse Mania! The worst band in the world! Follow their incompetent shows that test the audience’s patience as they perform in back gardens and dive bars and take on the local music scene, heckling other bands’ performances and sabotaging their merch tables! Will they ever make it - find fame and fortune through their art? Of course not. They’re garbage. Horse Mania! Aoow!
It’s 1980 and a small plane crashes into the ocean killing all nine passengers aboard. But when salvage diver Robert Western enters the underwater plane, he finds only eight bodies. Then men in black start showing up to ask him: what did he see down there? Did he take anything from the wreckage? And does he believe in aliens…
Outlaws, Native Americans, katanas, bandits, the beautiful but deadly natural landscape and animal inhabitants of ‘murica, and the filthy lucre, gold, gold, goooooold! that drives the conflict behind most of the stories here.
A farmer marries a city girl and the two start a family in the country. But the marriage isn’t a happy one and the wife hides a secret concerning their daughter. When the farmer does something unforgivable, the wife will have her revenge.
Batman Inc. are arrested for moiderising some character called Abyss in Badhnisia (which is east of Crapland and just south of Nasty Place). Batman flies out to see what’s what.
The group remain stuck in the deathtrap-laden Borderland but they’re also slowly figuring the world out and might’ve even discovered a way to escape once and for all. All roads lead to the mysterious Beach - will Arisu and co. find the answers they’re looking for there?
A young girl goes to stay with her uncle and aunt for the summer where her life and theirs will change in subtle but powerful ways as they each help the other’s hidden trauma. But summer never lasts…
I’m not a Ram V fan and can’t fathom his popularity - I’ve read his Catwoman and Swamp Thing books at DC, his Laila Starr book at Boom, and they’re all terrible. But apparently These Savage Shores at Vault is supposed to be his best book, and it’s the one that got him those other titles, so maybe I’ll be all turned around on him if I give this one a shot? Uh, no. I won’t say it’s his worst book because they’re all this level of crappiness but it’s definitely not good.
You know how Jeff Lemire never does comics set in a dystopian future? Wait… (thinks)
