Blog Update for February 2008

This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, updating my favorite comics and TV for the previous month. The listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. This is basically also my own records of what I read/liked for the inevitable "End of Year" lists I feel like making.

In terms of comics this month, my reading was much the same as it has been. Enough good single issues that everything didn't make the cut (including the final issue of American Virgin, the latest issue of Northlanders and a few others that were *almost* in there), and few enough graphic novels that two on my list were actually bought months ago but only read this month, and the two that nearly made my list were also older ones that have been sitting on my bookshelf, Scrap Mettle (Scott Morse's art book from Image) and Scorpion: Poison Tomorrow (from Marvel). My daughter loves the new Bakers, btw. She found it on my stack of comics, brought it out of my office and now I've read it to her at least twice and her grandfather (my dad) has read it to her at least once. Breaking down the comics, it was 5 Dark Horse (BPRD 1946 again, plus Abe Sapien, Grendel, Buffy and the final Umbrella Academy), 10 Marvel (a mixture of continuity and non-continuity, written by Brubaker, Fraction, Pak, Van Lente, Parker, Peter David and Abnett & Lanning), 3 DC (1 Vertigo, 1 out-of-continuity Teen Titans Year One and one in-continuity Nightwing that is untouched by the Countdown goings-on) and 2 indies (Jeff Smith's RASL, potential best new book of the year, and another solid issue of Mouse Guard from Archaia).

Not much time for TV this month. Finished out Friday Night Lights and wound up mostly underwhelmed... at this point, I hope it doesn't come back unless they can recapture that first season magic (which I'm not sure they can do, given all the extra baggage in every character's backstory now) and I certainly won't buy season two on DVD. Torchwood also got really dull and dumb, and Netflix sent me the third disc since I forgot to reorder my queue, but unless it winds up being tons better, I doubt I'll rent any more. Lost, however, continues to be spectacularly good, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles has grown on me. Although it's sci-fi on Fox, which means that no matter how great the ratings have been up to this point, it's probably doomed. I also watched the Justice League New Frontier animated movie... it's good, but mostly serves as a great trailer for the graphic novel, which has all the good moments of the movie plus tons of stuff that was cut out with the Losers, the Challengers of the Unknown, etc. Rent the DVD... buy the Absolute Edition of the graphic novel.

Only a couple new RSS feeds added this month. Added Starslip Crisis (after going back to read all the archives prior to moderating the webcomics panel at STAPLE!... more about STAPLE! when I get a little more free time to blog this week) and Yelp!'s Austin reviews, which are proving to be excellent in terms of pointing me to new restaurants I want to try but can't find the time, energy or money to get to.