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Shortcomings

A follow-up to my earlier open call for comic suggestions. Donna came through with some great suggestions, as well as some others, so I did some shopping last weekend. Here's an inventory:

I picked up Pyongyang, A Journey in North Korea for a number of reasons. The artwork is easy on the eyes and the book looked like a pretty easy read. I decided to read this one first and read half of it in a day. There's a lighthearted nature in this book based in a setting that is rather terrifying in some ways.

The epic Blankets, which Noel called, "like an epic-length comic book version of an emo song," was also picked up. Whether I like it or not, I'm a late nineties post-hardcore/emo geek, and that's perfectly fine. There's a difference between those who still wear old Promise Ring or Get Up Kids shirts that they bought at a small show back in the day and those that wear guyliner and think My Chemical Romance invented emo. I'm guessing Blankets is more my alley than say, the storyline for the video for the All-American Rejects' "Swing Swing."

Adam recommended Persepolis, and I remembered when Julie recommended the book and movie, so I got that one as well. Once again, the artwork really struck me, plus the general storyline being about growing up in a foreign country.

Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings caught my eye as I browsed through the "Amazon.com users also bought" category. The cleanly-drawn artwork and the book's description seemed right in line with what I'm interested in.

Finally, there was Phonogram, the trade paperback which collects all six issues of Rue Britannia. I vaguely remember seeing its This is Hardcore-like cover in an A.V. Club Comic Panel writeup, but was quite interested in reading it when I saw it on the shelf. The first page I saw mentioned the Manics' "Motown Junk." I was sold.

So, I'm very happy to say that this search has been really helpful. I don't plan on hitting up the comics store every week, but I have at least regained an interest in finding comics that speak to me. I can't read band biographies and moviemaking books all the time, you know.

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