Tag Archives: reading

Clean Room #1

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Written by Gail Simone

Art by Jon David-Hunt

Cover art by Jenny Frison

“Spring Cleaning Part One”

Welcome to the Daily Read. This is going to be a new semi-regular column at EYG where we take a comic series and we read an issue a day, every day until we finish the run. Much like the DailyView where we watch a movie a day, this will be reading a comic.

I was inspired to do this by a series that I picked up on eBay this past week. I had been interested in the latest rebirth of DC Comics’ Vertigo line. These new books are intriguing and I will be picking them up. Meanwhile, I was on Blue Sky recently and Gail Simone (or someone who was responding to her) brought up a series called Clean Room. I had never heard of it before so I went to eBay and found the whole 18-issue series. It had debuted in December 2015 and I decided to order it.

I have been a huge fan of Gail Simone’s work on the Uncanny X-Men recently, and I have been looking into other work that she had done in comics. I was able to meet her at the SiouxCon this past September and get her to sign some books. I purchased a comic script she had written for Savage Wolverine #19, which was so cool.

So I wanted to read this series, but I have a busy schedule and it is difficult to make time for things. That is… unless I am doing a column about it. This led to me creating the Daily Read in order to make sure that I carve out the time needed to read the series.

I read issue one this afternoon and I was fully engaged with it. It started out with a frightening scene with a little girl and an angry man driving a truck. For a moment, I thought this book was starting out with something truly tragic, but the little girl survived only to ask a creepy question: “Mama, why is Papa’s face made of snakes?”

We then meet Chloe, who is on a mission to discover what she could about Astrid Mueller. Mueller had written a self-help book that led to Chloe’s husband’s death (I am not sure if it was explicitly said, but it certainly implied that he had taken his own life).

Chloe’s path in just this first issue was rough as she seemingly tried to drown herself, only to be rescued. She decided on her path to find out why Philip, her husband, died.

Meanwhile, we do not meet Astrid Mueller until the final page, but the book does a great job of setting this woman up as something horrendous, even comparing her to Satan. The story does a sensational job of creating an aura around this character before we see her walk into the scene.

After reading the first issue, I confirmed that I wanted to do this Daily Read on EYG. I have decided that this series is very much worth the time that I will need to commit to read it and write about it. I love it when a series is clever and creative and makes me think about what is going on, and, so far, Clean Room has succeeded in that.

I will be reading an issue a day for the next 17 days and posting my thoughts about it.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #36

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“Rewind 1921”

After a short respite on a Friday morning last week, we are back on Sunday morning, BABY!

I went to SiouxperCon last week in South Dakota, which meant that I had to miss a Sunday morning. Instead, I did the Sunday Morning Sidewalk #35 on a Friday morning.

Back on Sunday, I watched the penultimate episode of Lovecraft Country, “Rewind 1921.”

Time travel is always tough, but this trip back to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 was impeccably done. It brought us back around to a scene from the first episode that featured Jackie Robinson and made it make sense with what our current story is.

Atticus, Leti and Montrose travel through the portal to 1921, thanks to the returning Hippolyta, in search of the Book of Names, in order to save Diana. What they find is horror and loss in a brutal manner as the Tulsa race massacre was in full nightmare.

Montrose, especially, had to go through his own personal anguish, as they witnessed his father beating him with a switch. Montrose went to see the death of a boy that he had had feelings for and, all the while, Montrose knew that he could not do anything to change what happened.

To find out that it was Atticus all along who showed up and saved Montrose and George (aka Jackie Robinson) was one of those wild time travel things that brings everything full circle.

It was an emotional, powerful, painful episode looking back at how these characters were affected by this tragic event in American history.

Leti went through it as well, as she found the Book of Names as the house burned down around her, including Dora’s grandmother, who had given her the book just before horrifically burning to death in front of her.

The episode ended with our heroes clearly affected, but back in their own timeline.

I have a feeling that next week’s finale is not going to provide the satisfactory conclusion I hope as I had heard the show left off on a cliffhanger and it has never been renewed. I hope it is a cliffhanger that is designed to create something new and not one to continue this story moving forward.

Yellowjackets S1 E7

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“No Compass”

An exciting episode. With the three current day women dropping off the money, and the dramatic danger at the end of the episode with a pack of wolves, this was exciting throughout the whole episode.

So many things happened. Taissa had tackled the guy who was blackmailing them, but took an elbow to the face allowing him to get away. Kevin discovered that his gun was messed up and questioned Natalie about it. Shauna came back and had sex with Adam.

I saw that Christina Ricci was on the credits and I did not know that she was on this show. So I looked up who she played. I thought it might be current day Natalie, but I was shocked to see that she is playing current day Misty. Couldn’t believe it. Then, we see Misty and her sociopathy tendencies as she interviewed the reporter.

The wolves attack at the end with them tearing off parts of Van’s face. It was a brutal reminder how dangerous of a situation that they were in.

The whole Shauna/Jackie story with Shauna’s pregnancy was another key component of the episode. Jackie found the diary with the truth in it after Shauna had told her that it was Randy who had gotten her pregnant.

Three more episodes of season one.

The ABCs of Book Banning (2023)

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June 22, 2024

It is another busy day, so I made time this morning for another Oscar nominated documentary short film, and it is one whose topic is close t my heart. The ABCs of Book Banning is a look at some of the books that have been banned, challenged or restricted in schools across the country and the thoughts from children about the banning.

The film showed many books and gave excerpts from them in order to show a type of book that seemed to be banned more than others. A high percentage of these books appear to be about those segments of society that are different from the “normal” public. Black & Jewish history, those dealing with LGBTQ + community, those dealing with power for women… these are the majority of the books shown.

The film began with 100-year old Grace Lin speaking to a school board about the banning of books and how it went against everything that she believed and that her husband, who died in World War II, fought for.

The most effective part of the film was the comments made by the children. These kids were asked about the books. These children were very well spoken and convincing.

The slideshow-like was less effective, basically just showing images of the banned books and animating some for illustration. I saw several books that I have on my own shelf show up on the screen, including EYG Hall of Fame graphic novel Maus.

This film does feel slight and does not go into the specifics of the topic. I do not have a problem with the film stating that they wanted to give voice to the one side of this issue since the voice for the banning has been so loud, but I needed more substance to it.

I am totally opposed to the idea of book banning and find the act repulsive. This is not quite as powerful as I would have liked.