I’ve realized that I am at the age where I’ve forgotten more books I’ve read than books I’ve left to read in my lifetime.

Yes, it’s wildly depressing. For most books, I can just remember feeling that they were good, but the details are pretty fuzzy.

So, the Mobtown Shank Reading Club this year will be about revisiting some classics and seeing if they hold up. And the twist is that they’re all graphic novels. If you’ve never really gotten into comics or jumped in late, this would be a good chance to get into some great titles and tear them apart!

We’ve got the year planned out, so drop in when you want, or go for the whole ride:

January – V for Vendetta
February – Watchmen
March – Dark Knight Returns
April – Love & Rockets Book 10
May – I Never Liked You
June – Buddy Does Seattle
July – My New York Diary
August – Jimmy Corrigan
September – Our Cancer Year
October – Cinderalla
November – Ghost World
December – Black Hole

Discussions will be held at the end of each month over at Frazier’s.

Email me to be kept in the loop and for your secret decoder ring.

And we still have our Lost Book Club. We’ll be discussing A Wrinkle in Time in January.

The Sandman: King of Dreams by Alisa Kwitney
I checked this out thinking it was a collection of The Sandman comics. In reality, it wasn’t the comics themselves, but an in depth analysis of the art and mythology of The Sandman. It was written by Alisa Kwitney, former Vertigo writer and editor, and it offers a first hand look at this monumental creation. I’ve never read The Sandman, hence my trying to borrow a collection from the library, so this book was of great relevance to me the newbie reader. In his introduction, Gaiman even notes how this may be of greater interest to those not associated with the series than with its “old friends”. What it did was lay the groundwork for my better understanding of why The Sandman is the masterpiece of storytelling that it is. Kwitney is able to peel back the many layers of this litterary onion, and she puts into words those observations that often lay dormant in the back corners of our subconscious. Accompanying Kwitney’s essays, which examine the volumes of the series one by one, is art from and inspired by The Sandman. Not only is this art astounding to look at, it directly corresponds to the subjects at hand, providing reference for specific people, characters, themes, moods, story arcs, etc. And thanks to good book design, the images are always at equal pace with the reader.

I can’t wait to read The Sandman series. From how Kwitney put it, it’s going to blow my puny mortal mind.