Book Description
When it became syndicated in 1989, Dilbert struck a nerve with workers everywhere. Through its frames they saw life on the job as they knew it, with all the absurdity, craziness, and dry humor that underlies any living, breathing organization. The fact that the strip focused on a hapless engineer and his cynical dog just made it all the more funny.
Now work life seems downright unimaginable without Dilbert and Dogbert's take on everything from management ill-practices to nonperformance reviews. What Would Wally Do?, AMP's twenty-sixth Dilbert book, delivers that same combination of pain and humor that readers count on. This collection especially highlights Wally, Dilbert's colleague, fellow engineer, foil, and fool.
Wally's that short quirky guy with little hair, plenty of horn-rimmed frames, and almost zero work ethic. After all, who's got time for a job, thinks the self-proclaimed "Lord Wally the Puppet Master," when you're busy surviving the "Mobility Pool," turning your cubicle into a tourist attraction called "Sticky-Note City," and selecting a mail-order bride from Elbonia? Weasel-Boy makes a point of highlighting his poor performance and lack of respect . . .and usually gets another raise for his efforts. Such is life in Dilbert and Wally's world. Such are the laughs in What Would Wally Do?
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing - Scott Adams should be mad.......2007-07-06
Dilbert is a great comic strip, and it's a fine idea to assemble a bunch of funny strips about Wally. I don't even mind that it's all recycled material.
But it's an insult to the reader to assemble the strips so badly. If there are two strips from the same sequence, why separate them by several pages? I'm taking this one back - it doesn't add anything new and it's edited badly.
A book about Wally or by Wally?.......2007-06-28
I can't decide if the poor editing in this book is intended to be part of the humor or not. The "Wally Version 1.0" back story was entertaining and, as always, there were some laugh-out-loud strips in this book.
Unfortunately though, it seems that the publisher assigned some interns to pull out all the Dilbert strips they could find where Wally supplies the punch line and then put them in the book in no particular order. At first, it appears that the strips are being presented in the order they were written or published but that "theme" is not maintained. At one point, there are three strips on one page that are obviously part of a single narrative but the last strip on the page is the "setup" for the punchlines in the first two. This was only the most glaring example of the lack of effort put into this book. Several other related strips appear out of order (in at least one case, separated by about 1/3rd of the book). Other strips are presented without critical context (presumably because the contextual strips don't feature Wally?) so they lose a lot of their punch.
I laughed while reading the book but I couldn't help imagining the publisher was also laughing on his way to the bank with my money.
REVIEW.......2007-04-16
I am a big fan of DILBERT, and I'm sure that you will think this book is hilarious. Wally is probably my favorite character, and Dilbert is my second. Office politics are so funny, and Scot Adams hits them on top of the head.
Almost too funny collection by Scott Adams.......2007-01-15
I'm a fan of comics, but I'm very picky about which ones I choose to love. "Peanuts" will always be the standard, since I followed them since I was old enough to read. Of course, many other classics have hung around for decades, some, like Beetle Bailey, like seeing an old friend, and magnum puke affairs like "Family Circus", which is so square and traditional, you just know they're all neo-con evangelicals.
No strip out there matches day to day the wit, sarcasm and accuracy of "Dilbert", Scott Adams' view of the workplace and all the idiocy that comes with it.
"What Would Wally Do?" celebrates the worst worker in the world (although I know a few who could be serious contenders) or maybe the greatest work avoider of all time, depending on your point of view.
Adams is always on the money when it comes to the stupidity of corporate America, and it's scary because in so many cases it's true, especially in the suck-up world of management, where snitching, butt kissing and treachery are more important for success than dependability, hard work or intelligence. Wally, Dilbert's co-worker, knows the system and how to beat it.
All of the "Dilbert" books are brilliant and will make you laugh out loud and best of all, will assure all of us that in the world of the workplace, when it comes to dealing with morons and slackers, we are definitely not alone.
The History of Wally.......2006-10-20
In the introduction Scott Adams talks about his time at Pacific Bell and the management decisions that resulted in the real-life Wally, an employee that worked hard to be in the bottom 10% so that he could be laid off with a substantial severance package. From there we move to the strips which cover most of the range of the Dilbert Years right from the early, unpolished days of Wally. Reading the collection we can see hoe the coffee mug carrying character has developed over the years.
Since this is a Wally retrospective there are no real story arcs in this collection. Instead, we get the strips that specifically showcase just how low Wally can sink. There are a small handful that seem like they don't belong to the collection but most give us the unvarnished truth about our favorite comic slacker. If you are a fan of Wally then you will need to read this almost-biography. General fans of the strip will still like the collection as it also showcases how the strip as a whole has changed over all these years. Check it out.
Book Description
Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), set in an alternative-universe version of World War II, has been called a modern Finnegan’s Wake for its challenging language, wild anachronisms, hallucinatory happenings, and fever-dream imagery. With Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow, artist Zak Smith at once eases and expands readers’ experience of the book. A leading exponent of punk-based, DIY art, Smith here presents his most ambitious project to date — an art book exactly as long as the work it’s interpreting: 760 drawings, paintings, photos, and less definable images in 760 pages. Extraordinary tableaux of the detritus of war — a burned-out Königstiger tank, a melted machine gun — coexist alongside such phantasmagoric Pynchon inventions as the “stumbling bird” and “Girgori the octopus.” Smith has stated his aim to be “as literal as possible” in interpreting Gravity’s Rainbow, but his images are as imaginative and powerfully unique as the prose they honor.
Customer Reviews:
like looking at the Grand Canyon for the first time.......2007-08-15
I just saw the Zak Smith exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minn. where I had gone to see the "Picasso in America". But this Gravity's Rainbow page-by-page is, by far, the reason to go to the Walker right now. Mindboggling. Buy the book and picture each page lined up like a grid covering an entire wall. The Pynchon book is quite challenging to read so try to imagine Zak Smith capturing the concept of each and every page with a drawing or picture. Number 404 looks like an inch thick melted white plastic mess--does anyone know what happened in the book on this page? I noticed that one of the "tags" for this product is "genius." Believe it.
And If You Think The Book Is Great...........2007-06-05
If you live anywhere near Minneapolis get yourself over to the Walker Art Center, where every single one of Zak Smith's drawings/paintings/sculptures (yes, some are three dimensional) for this project are displayed on one wall. (All are in the permanent collection of the Walker.) How do I know it's all 750+ artworks? Because I counted. 45 columns by 17 rows. You could spend hours staring at them and not exhaust this monumental project. I'm not sure how long they'll remain on display so don't put it off.
Buy it..........2007-03-28
Zak Smith a genious, and this book the best.
if you like concept ilustration, you'll love it...
and the prize it's great!
Overwhelming .......2007-01-18
I am at a loss for words.
It's one of the most beautiful things i've seen in years.
Book Description
DJ Ritz Harper used every trick in the book to become a media darling in Drama Is Her Middle Name, shock-jock Wendy Williams’s exposé of a life she knows better than anyone. Playing a clever trick of her own, Williams left her heroine on the brink of death at the end of the novel. Now the second installment of the chronicles reveals what Williams’s readers are dying to know: Is the Bitch Dead, or What?
The drive-by shooting that brought her down forces Ritz to look back on her climb to the top and the people she loved, lost, used, and abused along the way. There’s the brief dalliance with Tracee, her best friend, and the romance with a man with some secrets of his own; the loss of her beloved Aunt M; and the recent appearance of the father who abandoned her and is now demanding a financial payoff and fifteen minutes of fame. At the heart of it all is Ritz’s need to figure out where the real-life Ritz ends and the radio bitch begins.
For the huge audience hooked on The Wendy Williams Experience and readers itching to find out what happens to the over-the-top star of Drama Is Her Middle Name, Is the Bitch Dead, or What? is packed with all the irresistible shocks and insider dish that make Williams the hottest voice in America today.
Customer Reviews:
Got time to waste?.......2007-06-11
I am a listener to "Miss Wendy" here in NY and when this book came out I didn't plan on buying it just because as an avid reader I couldn't picture her writing a novel. I still can't. It came to me automatically because of a book club I belong to so I read it. It's really juvenile. I mean the Ritz character is sooooo overdone and I felt like yelling out, "I get it! She's a B****!" I liked the Tracee character alot since she was the one who had some sense. I know Williams had help on this novel as she did with her bios and Ritz #1. All I can say is with two people working on this book, we should have got better. Like I said, if you have time to waste read this then give it away. You won't read it again. Williams really needs to stay in her lane.
Fabulous.......2007-05-14
The book was sooooo good you won't put it down. Read it in 2-3 hours.
Interesting..........2007-04-18
The book turned out to be better than I expected it too. It was interesting. I am waiting for the third part to finally come out! You go Wendy!
YOU MUST READ.......2007-04-12
I DID'NT THINK I WOULD LIKE THIS BOOK BUT LET ME TELL YOU THIS A MUST READ BOOK IT WAS VERY GOOD AND I FINISHED IT IN ONE DAY AND I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE TO HIT THE BOOK STORES.THIS IS A MUST READ CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH.
a good read.......2007-04-10
If your a Wendy Williams fan, you will enjoy the book. It was a little slow getting into it, but once you get a few chapters in, it gets really good. I would recommend all of her books. Her books reflect her colorful commentary of her show! 107.5 NY NJ Connecticut 2-7pm, shes also syndicated in other cities.
Book Description
Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? What makes some superhuman figures "good" and others "evil"? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries? And how might the myths be changing?
Why is it that the key superhero archetypes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men - touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media?
All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero - in comic books, films, and TV - is such a potent myth for our times and culture.
Customer Reviews:
lacks good, hard, concise facts.......2004-09-24
Where are most superheroes orphaned at an early age? What is the purpose of groups of superheroes? Why does Batman have a preadolescent sidekick? Why are there also superheroines?
I'm afraid I can't answer any of these questions. The author of this book discusses all of these questions, but his discussion is a little too hazy for me.
interesting light reading.......2004-06-22
I am a fan of comic book superheroes; I try to see all the major Hollywood movies on superheroes like X-Men, Batman, Superman, etc... I am also a fan of the Sunday comics. But I have never read a comic book. So I picked this book up last month thinking it would be a good way to learn about comic book lore and history. This book accomplishes that. It covers the origins (and conclusions) of all the major comic book heroes. It also goes a little into the history of the authors / creators / publishers of these comic books.
The pace is quick, the book is short, and most teenagers should be able to read the whole book in a weekend. But as a piece of literary criticism, it is okay. This book to the comic book genre is like having one Cliff Notes book for all of Shakespeare; you sacrifice depth for breadth. Overarching themes are emphasized over storylines of the individual comic book heroes. There are a lot of interesting facts though; such as Harry Potter being an orphan, just like Batman, Superman, and the Hulk. In all, this book is worth reading if you have the time to spare. I definitely would recommend it as reading material for a college class on say 20th century American culture, or Mass Media / Entertainment.
Book Description
Yes, it's the long-awaited third collection featuring all of the Duelist magazine strips, plus some never-before-seen strips, a new eight-page story by Phil and rare card parodies from Inquest magazine.
Customer Reviews:
Better than Sex and D&D!.......2000-12-10
Foglio has always been a wonderful, and uproariously funny, writter and artist. His works are the best! And "What's New 3" adds even more credit to my claim that he is one of the funniest men alive! As a continuation of the "What's New" comic strips that were origionally run in "The Dragon" - the magazine for the legendary Dungeons&Dragons roleplaying game, our comical narrators, Phil and Dixie, move on to work for the Mammoth sized company Wizards of the Coast. There instead of bringging out the humor of role playing they bring a whole new light to the game that swept the nation - "Magic - the Gathering." I couldn't put the book down, it was too funny! I would often find myself on the ground rolling in laughter as Phoglio briliantly played off the humorous nature off all things fanciful. This is a MUST HAVE for any gamer in the world - whether traditional roleplaying gamer or neostyle card gamer. Sadly, not being a Magic player I missed a few of the references to the Magic game, but you really don't have to play to laugh! I don't think I can express the genius and humorousness of this collection! The art is outstanding as always, and the jokes are unbeatable, buy this book! It is a perfect continuation of The first two What's New collections.
Average customer rating:
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What a Novel Idea!: Projects and Activities for Young Adult Literature
Katherine Wiesolek Kuta
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Accessories:
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philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer
ASIN: 1563084791 |
Book Description
Each of the sixty reproducible classroom-ready activities has general guidelines that describe the purposes for the project, how to use it, evaluation points, and variations that increase student participation and motivation, and a variety of assessment activities. Designed around the new IRA/NCTE Standards, (reading, writing, representing, viewing, speaking, and listening) these stimulating activities applicable to a variety of novels create opportunities for students to develop their skills as readers, writers, and speakers. Three sections center on reading and writing activity projects (e.g., essays, news stories, letters), visual display projects (e.g., charts, posters, bookmarks), and speaking and listening activities.
Customer Reviews:
What A Novel Idea!.......2000-03-31
I found this book extremely helpful! I am a college student that has been doing some teaching for the past few semesters. I have used numerous books that would help plan lessons to be taught. This book was the most helpful and interesting. It offers may fun and interesting comprehension activities that are easily taught to many different ages of students. The strategies in this book can be used when teaching a book or story that the students may be reading. "What A Novel Idea" is an excellent resource that I would recommend to any teacher that is looking for new and fun activities to help monitor their students' comprehension of a text.
Book Description
In its eight short years, the comic strip Mutts has won the National Cartoonists Society's coveted Comic Strip of the Year Award, its author Patrick McDonnell has earned the NCS's Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year Award, and the strip has topped a circulation of 500 papers. So, what now for Mutts'That's exactly what the title of McDonnell's latest cartoon collection asks. What Now' chronicles the most recent humorous happenings of Earl the dog and his feline friend Mooch. As usual, the endearing pair can be counted on for laughs and charming adventures. In this latest collection, Mooch professes his love . . . for a little pink sock. "How can I take you seriously with a little pink sock in your mouth'" asks Earl. "This from a guy who wears a "Shnoopy" collar," retorts Mooch. Mooch's affection for his sock is so deep, he sings little songs about it. But the love affair comes to an abrupt end when his pal Earl buries it to try to end the obsession. Fortunately for Mooch, socks come in pairs, and he's soon reunited with "its twin sister."Earl and Mooch put their comic spin on a wide range of subjects, from napping and poetry to summer vacations and Christmas anticipations. Interspersed with its charming humor are more weighty messages on issues important to McDonnell, such as animal shelters, saving our endangered species, and other animal-protection topics. What Now' follows Mutts' well-established tradition of delivering creative style and the charm of yesteryear unlike any other strip on the funny pages today.
Customer Reviews:
YESH!!!.......2006-11-15
I'm a quite new fan of MUTTS. First approach was in Houston airport in some newspaper forgotten on a chair. Colorful and simple...one line in wich Bip tells Bop "Green is so yesterday", was so hilarious for me I couldn't understand why...so I looked forward to read more stripes online afterwards.
I just received my first book of MUTTS (No 7) "WHAT NOW". After reading the first pages, I can tell you that after a hard day, or even if you are kinda depressed or blue....this will cheer you up for sure!.
Definetely Earl and Mooch are the best!! . . . in this very issue you'll see the love at first sight of the "lil pink sock".
Inocent, simple and just delightful...!
Greetings to ya'll MUTT fans.
ORD
Little Pink Sock.......2005-09-04
This comic makes me wonder...is my doggie reading this when I leave the room? :)
Great as always.......2004-08-07
I always enjoyed the Mutts book and this is great as the others. The every day stories of the dog Earl and cat Mooch (inclusive owners and some other animals such as woofie, crabby, and squirrel) are cute, innocent, funny and kind of philosophical. I just love that even I read every strip at least five times, I can still smile /laugh about them.
Mutts - A Great Comic Sstrip.......2003-01-02
Mutts was called "One of the greatest comic strips of all time" by Charles Schulz. Give yourself a little time a read this great collection. And then treat yourself to all the Mutts books, you'll be glad you did...
YESSHHHH!!!.......2002-12-28
Best comic strip since Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes. Those of us who own and love our pets can relate to McDonnell's silly yet sensitive and always charming sense of humor. Curl up with a lil pink sock, a bowl of Chicky Schnoodle Shoup and read ALL the books---you'll be better for it!
Amazon.com
It's a sign of how grown up comics have become that a book like Douglas Wolk's Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean can ignore the bashful throat-clearing that has plagued most mainstream writing about comics and just wade into the fray without having to apologize or justify such serious attention to what was until recently considered a throwaway kids' medium. Now that grownups everywhere are talking about comics without shame, what's newly refreshing about Reading Comics is the way that Wolk balances his love (sometimes tough love) for the two often warring (or at least mutually ignorant) sides of comics--the superhero tradition and the art comics that have gained highbrow attention lately--without ignoring the differences between them. Reading Comics is an appealingly idiosyncratic tour of many of his favorite artists that doesn't hesitate to criticize some of the most revered names in the business (like Chris Ware and Will Eisner) or investigate some of its most forgotten genre byways (like the '70s series Tomb of Dracula) with serious enthusiasm. --Tom Nissley
Questions for Douglas Wolk
Amazon.com:What do comics--the writing and the pictures and the narrative combined--give us that other art forms don't?
Wolk: The most important thing comics give us, I think, is drawing that makes a story. What you're seeing when you look at a page of comics, you're not just looking at a bunch of images that represent a plot, you're looking at something that came from somebody's hand--a deliberately distorted world, changing over time, built by a particular artist, line by line.
Amazon.com: There is a great perceived divide in comics, between the superhero tradition and what you call art comics. One of the pleasures of your book is the way you happily work both sides of that divide without fuss. Do you think the divide is valid, or does it melt away the more attention you pay to individual artists?
Wolk: There's definitely a useful distinction to make--art comics are primarily about particular cartoonists' self-expression, and superhero comics are primarily about the characters and their shared fictional history. One's an ethos, the other's a genre. But I don't think individual artists have to stay in one camp or the other, and in any case an ethos and a genre can overlap. You can say that Mark Bagley and Hope Larson belong to totally different schools, but then somebody like Bill Sienkiewicz turns up and makes the idea of a binary opposition look ridiculous. In fact, the best genre comics almost always have a really strong sense of expressive style about them.
Amazon.com: One way you, by necessity, limit the range of your discussion is to leave out the newspaper-strip side of comics history. As someone who came to comics from that side of things, it was a little disconcerting to read a book on American comics that only made a single passing reference to Charles Schulz. What influence do you think newspaper strips have had on the development of art comics especially?
Wolk: One of the biggest breakthroughs I had in writing Reading Comics was realizing that not only did I not have to make it comprehensive, it'd be more interesting and useful if it didn't even pretend to be comprehensive! I didn't mention newspaper strips much because they mostly seem to me to be playing a slightly different game from narrative comics--at least, there hasn't been a lot of extended narrative in newspaper strips in a long time. (By their nature, they have to get in and get out in a few lines, and now that they're all postage-stamp-sized, there's really no way they can move a story forward.) What newspaper strips did contribute to art comics was the development of distinctive visual style--the idea that an artist's handiwork was at least as important as a strip's characters--but these days they're so tightly limited by their size and populism and every-third-panel punchlines that they sometimes seem like an arcane kind of microminiature. Everybody loves "Peanuts," but I don't know that there's even room for a new stylist as fresh as Schulz (or George Herriman or Milton Caniff or Winsor McCay) on the newspaper page now. On the other hand, "Calvin & Hobbes" wasn't so long ago.
Amazon.com: And for a reader like me who has pretty much bypassed the superhero tradition and become a Dan Clowes/Charles Burns/Chris Ware fan via Peanuts and literary fiction, where would you recommend I start reading on the superhero side of the divide, which, as you say, has become so self-referential that it can be hard to crack the code?
Wolk: I was talking with some friends recently about the common mistake of recommending Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, as great as it is, as a starting point for superhero comics--as one of them put it, that's like recommending The Seventh Seal as someone's first movie! For pure, unencumbered superhero joycore, I love Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman--if you've heard of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, you know everything you need to know to enjoy it, and it deepens with repeated reading. Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos's cruelly witty Alias, about a self-loathing ex-superheroine-turned-P.I., has lots of Easter eggs for the continuity-obsessed, but it probably works even better as a stand-alone story. And if you're at all into Victorian literature and/or want to sample Moore's work, the two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (drawn by Kevin O'Neill) are hugely fun on their own, and also illustrate by analogy the way a lot of the best superhero comics and other pulp art work: providing metaphors to illuminate the central concerns of their moment.
Amazon.com: You're as prolific a writer about music as you are about comics. How do you compare writing about the two?
Wolk: They're hard to compare--it feels like different parts of my brain deal with music and comics. I suppose both of them present the risk of paying too much attention to the words and missing the really important stuff. There's also much more of a tradition of music criticism with a strong, personal voice, and a richer shared vocabulary for talking about what's happening in music. ("Musical," for instance, is a perfectly normal word; there's no word that means "comics-ish"...) Right now, people writing about comics (in English, anyway) are still making it up as we go along, which is risky but exciting.
Amazon.com: I'm a big fan of your little book on James Brown's Live at the Apollo, my favorite so far in that wonderful 33 1/3 series, and one thing that struck me, having read your two books now, is that one, the James Brown book, is super-tight (fitting its subject I guess), aphoristic and efficient, while the other, Reading Comics, seems purposefully loose, willing to take a stroll and maybe not come back. Is that a difference you thought about while writing the two books?
Wolk: It was! I thought of Live at the Apollo as one long essay, a way of diagramming how the 35 minutes of that album exploded outwards in time, and I stole a lot of its tone and technique from George W.S. Trow's tiny fireball of a book Within the Context of No Context. I wanted Reading Comics to be more conversational--the idea was to open up as many arguments as I could, to try to broaden the way people talk about comics instead of codifying it.
Book Description
The first serious, readable, provocative, canon-smashing book of comics criticism by the leading critic in the field.
Suddenly, comics are everywhere: a newly matured art form, filling bookshelves with brilliant, innovative work and shaping the ideas and images of the rest of contemporary culture. In Reading Comics, critic Douglas Wolk shows us why this is and how it came to be.
Wolk illuminates the most dazzling creators of modern comics--from Alan Moore to Alison Bechdel to Dave Sim to Chris Ware--and introduces a critical theory that explains where each fits into the pantheon of art. Reading Comics is accessible to the hardcore fan and the curious newcomer; it is the first book for people who want to know not just what comics are worth reading, but also the ways to think and talk and argue about them.
Customer Reviews:
A book that wants to be more than it is.......2007-09-18
This is rather a difficult book to review. While I definitely appreciate the fact that comics are being treated seriously as a scholarly work, I'm not really sure that this book is, in fact, what it claims to be. The first third of the book is ostensibly dedicated to a discussion of the format of comics and he potential of the medium, but Wolk constantly peppers the book with condescending commentary on mainstream books even as he purports to love them, going so far at one point as to suggest that there's something developmentally wrong with an adult who still enjoys a character he enjoyed as a child. While there's certainly nothing wrong with the heavy bias towards independent comics this book displays, he often paints most superhero comics with the same brush (except, of course, for perennial exceptions Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and a few others). In other words, he does quite a bit to perpetuate the same primitive attitudes about comics that this book supposedly works to dispel.
The rest of the book is essentially a recommended reading list, with chapters devoted to different comic creators and their work. This section, honestly, is rather predictable. He gushes over the work of Alan Moore (even the total derailment of Promethea), pretentiously assures us that it's "okay" to read Dave Sim and Steve Ditko though they display (horrors!) conservative ideas in their work, and talks about the mastery of Maus. Not to say this section is all bad. Even in his predictability, he provides a very strong analysis of the Hernandez brothers' work, that of Chris Ware, of Chester Brown, and several other names that a mainstream reader may never have heard of. Perhaps the best chapter in the book is his analysis of Grant Morrison's work, which has actually convinced me to give The Invisibles another try. (I was put off by the anarchist tone of the first volume, something that doesn't appeal to me, but the idea in the analysis that the intended readers of the comic are actually people who have already read it makes me think that it's worth trying again).
This isn't a bad book - there are a lot of interesting ideas and thoughtful insights into comics as a whole and several comics in particular. But in the end, Wolk suffers the same fate as a lot of people who have tried to analyze comics as an artform. Simply put, the book thinks it's more important than it actually is.
It's about damn time!.......2007-08-14
This book has been a long time coming. In the big question regarding how comics can start getting talked about more seriously, the simplest answer is for people to actually just talk about them seriously. Douglas Wolk gets that started. While the first 1/3 may have an air of "well, duh" to long-time comics readers and professionals, it's still great to read how Wolk contextualizes the fundamentals, and many of his ideas may challenge you to consider why you have the conceptions about this artform that you have.
Once the author starts dissecting other people's work, however, we're off to the races. Even books I didn't rate on my own or haven't read come alive when Wolk writes about them. He proves that comics aren't as simplistic as their reputation often implies, and as with any passionate critic, his enthusiasm is infectious.
smart, funny and informative.......2007-07-23
Reading Comics is a wonderfully informative book that delivers on every level. It's fun to read b/c Douglas Wolk is a talented writer. He's smart and passionate and his understanding of comics/graphic novels is impressive. He's funny too, which doesn't hurt! I breezed right through it and really enjoyed the ride. He has a very conversational tone, but he's not your know-it-all friend who's pretending to know more than he does - he's just explaining everything to you the way a friend would, and I can't think of a better way to learn than that. I picked this up because I'm familiar with Wolk's work (his 33 1/3 on James Brown's Live at the Apollo is undeniably one of the best in the series) and was curious what he had to say about graphic novels and I recommend it to anyone in need of an intelligent book on the subject. It would be the coolest text book ever.
Satisfying..........2007-07-11
As a childhood comics fan returned to the medium as an adult in search of meaningful entertainment, I appreciated Wolk's book as timely for comics' present moment, perhaps even overdue. Few corners of American comics aren't discussed and none go unmentioned. Wolk's book provides adequately theoretical, satisfying discussions of both "mainstream" superhero comics and "art comics", mapping them in the constellation of American popular culture. It helps that Wolk is a music critic as well; Wolk writes accessibly, like a reviewer or critic, and is unapologetic about comics as pleasure-reading first, with enormous artistic potential behind them. He discusses a serious American comic fan's range of work in a thought-provoking manner (from Ware and Bechdel to Moore and Miller), but informs readers enough to avoid sounding like the snooty "you-haven't-read-that?" comics junkie expounding arcane comics references. Not perfect, but plenty good for a reader like me.
Amazon.com
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1998: What makes Pearl Cleage's novel so damned enjoyable? At first glance, after all, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day seems pretty heavy going: HIV, suicide, sudden infant death syndrome, and drunk driving all figure prominently in the lives of narrator Ava Johnson and her older sister Joyce. It isn't long before crack addiction, domestic violence, and unwed motherhood have joined the list--so, where's the pleasure? The answer lies in the sharp and funny attitude Cleage brings to her depiction of one African American community in the troubled '90s. Ava Johnson, for example, might be HIV-positive, but she's refreshingly forthright about it: "Most of us got it from the boys. Which is, when you think about it, a pretty good argument for cutting men loose, but if I could work up a strong physical reaction to women, I would already be having sex with them. I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying I can't be a witness. Too many titties in one place to suit me."
Ada has spent the last 10 years living in Atlanta. When she discovers she's infected, she sells her hairdressing business and heads back to her childhood home of Idlewild, Michigan, to spend the summer with her recently widowed sister before moving on to San Francisco. Once there, however, she finds herself embroiled in big-city problems--drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, and an abandoned crack-addicted baby, to name just a few--in a small-town setting. Ava also meets Eddie Jefferson, a man with a past who just might change her mind about the imprudence of falling in love.
In less assured hands, such a catalog of disasters would make for maudlin, melodramatic reading indeed. But Cleage, an accomplished playwright, has a way both with characters and with language that lifts this tale above its movie-of-the-week tendencies. In Ava she has created a character who not only effortlessly carries the weight of the story but also provides entertaining commentary on African American life as she goes. Discussing the insular nature of the black community in Atlanta, she recalls, "I'd walk into a reception room and there'd be a room full of brothers, power-brokering their asses off, and I'd realize I'd seen them all naked. I'd watch them striding around, talking to each other in those phony-ass voices men use when they want to make it clear they got juice, and it was so depressing, all I'd want to do was go home and get drunk." Later, she describes the preacher's wife's hair as "pressed and hot-curled within an inch of its life.... Hardly anybody asks for that kind of hard press anymore. Sister seems to have missed the moment when we decided it was okay for the hair to move."
As the trials and tribulations pile on, the experiences of Cleage's characters prove to be universal: death, love, second chances. Ava's acerbic, smart-mouthed narrative keeps the story buoyant; by the time this endearingly imperfect heroine and her cohorts have negotiated the rocky road to a happy ending, readers will be sorry to see her go, even as they wish her well. --Alix Wilber
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
When things take a turn for the worse in Atlanta, Ava Johnson decides to sell her hair salon and move to San Francisco. On the way, she chooses to summer in Idlewild, the small town in northern Michigan where she grew up. Will she be able to move on, however, when her friends and family need her? Author Pearl Cleage reads this generous (four and one-half hour) abridgment, and her gentle, warm voice seems to put every scene--for better or worse--into soft focus. An Oprah book pick. (Running time: 4.5 hours, 4 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney
Book Description
Acclaimed Playwright, essayist and columnist Pearl Cleage breaks new ground in African American women's literature--with a debut novel that sings and crackles with life-affirming energy as it moves the reader to laughter and tears.
As a girl growing up in Idlewild, Michigan, Ava Johnson had always heard that, if you were young, black, and had any sense at all, Atlanta was the place to be. So as soon as she was old enough and able enough, that was where she went--parlaying her smarts and her ambition into one of the hottest hair salons in town. In no time, she was moving with the brothers and sisters who had beautiful clothes, big cars, bigger dreams, and money in the bank.
Now, after more than a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living, Ava has come home, her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits on one dark truth. Ava Johnson has tested positive for HIV. And she's back in little Idlewild to spend a quiet summer with her widowed sister, Joyce, before moving on to finish her life in San Francisco, the most HIV-friendly place she can imagine.
But what she thinks is the end is only the beginning because there's too much going down in her hometown for Ava to ignore. There's the Sewing Circus--sister Joyce's determined effort to educate Idlewild's young black women about sex, drugs, pregnancy, whatever. . .despite the interference of the good Reverend Anderson and his most virtuous, "Just say no" wife. Plus Joyce needs a helping hand to make a loving home for Imani, an abandoned crack baby whom she's taken into her heart.
And then there's Wild Eddie, whose legendary background in violence combined with his Eastern gentility has stirred Ava's interest. . .and something more.
In the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city--drugs, crime, disease have come home to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away. Now she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Things are getting very interesting in Idlewild these days. Besides which, the unthinkable thing has started happening: Ava Johnson is failing in love.
A remarkable novel sizzling with sensuality, rollicking with wild humor, and humming with gritty truth, in What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. . .Pearl Cleage has created a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding.
As a girl growing up in Idlewild, Michigan, Ava Johnson had always heard that, if you were young, black, and had any sense at all, Atlanta was the place to be. So as soon as she was old enough and able enough, that was where she went--parlaying her smarts and her ambition into one of the hottest hair salons in town. In no time, she was moving with the brothers and sisters who had beautiful clothes, big cars, bigger dreams, and money in the bank.
Now, after more than a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living, Ava has come home, her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits on one dark truth. Ava Johnson has tested positive for HIV. And she's back in little Idlewild to spend a quiet summer with her widowed sister, Joyce, before moving on to finish her life in San Francisco, the most HIV-friendly place she can imagine.
And then there's Wild Eddie, whose legendary back ground in violence combined with his Eastern gentility has stirred Ava's interest...and something more.
In the ten-plus years since Ava left all the problems of the big city--drugs, crime, disease--have come home to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away. Now she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Things are getting very interesting in Idlewild these days. Besides which, the unthinkable thing has started happening: Ava Johnson is falling in love.
Download Description
"PerfectBound e-book extra: A Reading Group Guide to What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. The classic smash bestseller and Oprah fave is now an e-book. After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living among the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and the biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild -- her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines is the end is, instead, a beginning. Because, in the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love."
Customer Reviews:
Loved It.......2007-05-01
I was shocked, surprised and inspired. Just like a strong black woman to try to take care of everyone else's needs, make sure everyone is ok. This was a great book and didn't turn out at all like I expected. Oprah gets a thumbs up for this one. Usually I don't know how or why she picks a book. You wont be disappointed
Fresh!.......2007-04-30
The book comes alive with fresh, stick in your mind characters. I loved it! Pearl Cleage has become one of my favorite authors.
Perfect.......2007-03-14
This item was exactly what i ordered in the exact condition that i ordered it in. Would definitly do business with seller again! Thank you
Luv'd it.......2007-02-26
Hey, the girl surprised me. I was impressed by the coolness of her storyline and the realistic feelings that came through from Cleage's writing. nice work and i recommended it.
An eye-opening, humerous - raw life book.......2007-01-26
I picked up this book in a used bookstore for the sole reason that it was an Oprah's Book Club Book. I already had an arm load of books and thought that if Oprah liked it - it couldn't be that bad. I chose to read it several months later when I was in need of a short book to read quickly.
And, quickly indeed I read it.
I was happily surprised by how much I immediately fell in love with the characters and by how quickly I was enthralled in the story. I'd never read a book that was so honest in the ways of the African American woman and I was overjoyed by Cleage's writing style and how she really made the reader "know" the main character and her struggles.
I found this book eye opening and wonderful. It is touching, funny, heart wrenching - it is simply, an increadible read.
Average customer rating:
- An uneven collection of stories
- What If... we could get more stories per book???
|
What If? Classic, Vol. 2
Roy Thomas ,
Jim Shooter ,
Don Glut ,
Jim Craig ,
Herb Trimpe , and
Gil Kane
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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What If? Classic Vol. 1 (Marvel Heroes)
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What If? Classic Volume 3 TPB
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What If...?: Why Not Vol. 1 (Marvel Heroes)
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What If?: Mirror Mirror TPB
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Avengers: The Serpent Crown
ASIN: 0785118438 |
Book Description
Daredevil's secret exposed? The identity of Thor passed down to another? A new Hulk? Multiple Spider-Men? Some of the ideas that shook Marvel's foundation got their start right in the realm of remote possibility overseen by the wondering Watcher! But can even Uatu believe his eyes when Jack "King" Kirby rewrites himself and his fellow legends as the Fantastic Four? Plus: from a concept by Roy Thomas, the Avengers of 1958! Collects What If? #7-12.
Customer Reviews:
An uneven collection of stories.......2006-01-19
While I enjoyed the old What If? stories more than most older series, this collection was a little weak. At this time, the series was just starting to stretch its wings and get creative, so the stories have their hits and misses. The Spider-Man story had a few good moments, especially seeing Flash Thompson as his version of the hero (Spider-Man without the webs...interesting). The Daredevil story is perhaps the strongest in the collection, though the discovery of his blindness is a little contrived. The Thor story and the Fantastic Four story are the weakest in the bunch. The Avengers story was a really great idea, showing us the 3-D Man (an underused hero) teaming with other greats like Marvel Boy and Gorilla Man for an intriguing twist on the Avengers legend. The Hulk story was funny because you'd never expect the Hulk to call anyone a "square". Still, it was the 70's, so it makes sense. It gets annoying though when they announce the next issue is "What if Conan had lived today?" about 3 times (I don't know what the hold up was or why they kept pushing the story back issue after issue, but they shouldn't have kept announcing the story until they were ready for it. I guess it shows up in the next collection.).
The series got stronger after the stories in this collection, and I hope Marvel continues to release the series, though an Essential collection would probably make more sense. While seeing the stories in color is a nice bonus, only getting 6 stories per collection and paying more for them seems to rob it a bit. Still, keep an eye open for future stories in the first run of the series. They were great!
What If... we could get more stories per book???.......2005-12-15
While I appreciate Marvel's effort to get a second volume of WHAT IF CLASSIC into print, their incentive for doing so is not so much to give the classic series more attention, but to wring more money out of their latest round of modern What If comics. There is really no reason why Roy Thomas' classic series couldn't have been reprinted as an Essential Edition. By using their expensive glossy trade format for the collecting of What If Classic, Marvel sticks us with only six issues per volume for twenty-five dollars apiece. Think about that - only two volumes so far, reprinting only 12 issues, and you will have spent fifty bucks, the equivalent of a Marvel Masterwork! The big question is: is the printing of What If Classic in this expensive trade format really worth it? The answer is "not really", but that answer is due primarily to the fact that there just aren't enough stories here.
As I stated in my review of WHAT IF CLASSIC volume 1, the ideas for Roy Thomas' series took a while to build up steam. While the stories in volume 1 just barely cut it, however, the 6 issues contained here in volume 2 are more inspired, and definitely a step in the right direction, as Don Glut takes over the writing chores from Thomas. Consider this line-up:
#7: What if someone else besides Spider-Man had been bitten by the radioactive spider? Three members of Spidey's supporting cast get their turn at using the proportionate strength and abilities of a spider. The results aren't all that pleasant, and all three cases tie together into an ending that is a bit of a cheat.
#8: What if the world knew Daredevil is blind? Great concept, but a horrible set-up. Is that really all it would take to discover DD's secret?
#9: What if the Avengers had fought evil during the 1950s? A truly great entry in the series - Marvel/Timely characters from the `40s and `50s are resurrected in a very entertaining story, and thorough references are provided so you won't be left scratching your head. Superb.
#10: What if Jane Foster had found the hammer of Thor? Ehh... this one really could have been better.
#11: What if the Marvel bullpen had become the Fantastic Four? This almost seems like an inspiration for James Sturm's FF: UNSTABLE MOLECULES, as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Sol Brodsky, and Flo Steinberg gain the powers of the FF. Crazy Kirby story and art.
#12: What if Rick Jones had become the Hulk? The funniest of the bunch. Rick-Hulk speaks in hipster slang, and he STILL gets to be Bucky II and Captain Marvel's human anchor. A bit of an overload, but it has a great ending.
I prefer this volume to the first, due to the quality of writing, as well as the focus on more diverse characters. Also, the stories fit in better with major and minor events from the characters' histories. But still, 6 issues per book just doesn't make it worth it. The best way to go with the WHAT IF CLASSIC volumes is to order them at a discount from Amazon.
Books:
- Whoopi's Big Book of Manners
- You Will Make Money in Your Sleep: The Story of Dana Giacchetto, Financial Adviser to the Stars
- 1,000 Unforgettable Senior Moments: Of Which We Could Remember Only 246
- 10 Neat Things About Being a Flower Girl
- 21 Things I Wish My Broker Had Told Me: Practical Advice for New Real Estate Professionals.
- A Gentleman's Honor
- A Northern Light
- All About Me
- Arthritis Relief at Your Fingertips: The Complete Self-Care Guide for Easing Aches and Pains Without Drugs
- Bastard Prince: Henry VIII's Lost Son
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