Reading Daze
Okay, I ate a banana this morning. Everyone happy now? :-)
I also biked in this morning, and ended up reading the weather correctly: Although rain ("scattered showers") was predicted, it never did much more than drizzle lightly. So I had a nice ride in while it was moderately sunny, and a slightly chilly one home. Can't complain. It is just about time to start wearing gloves, though.
Tonight was also comic book night, although it was an unremarkable one. The new Starman came out, and is sort of limping along. I wish author James Robinson would just get on with the story and not keep taking all these little detours. I wish the same thing about Matt Wagner's current Mage series.
On the other hand, last week I picked up several paperback collections of a series entitled The 'Nam. Written by Vietnam vet Doug Murray, with cartoony but excellent artwork by Michael Golden, this is a terrific series about the Vietnam War. No super-heroes (in fact, when superheroes do show up - around issue #41 - the series reputedly goes into the toilet; apparently this was mandated from on high to boost sagging sales), the series was originally planned to cover one month of series time per month of real time, so in ten or so years of the comic it would cover the war from 1966 through 1975. This is a series I don't think I could really appreciate when it was first published (circa 1985?), but I like it now.
The series has a glossary of lingo used in the war, and spends a fair amount of time on the basic mechanics of fighting in Vietnam. It focuses on a particular troop of mechanized infantry, covering their foibles, building up their characters, and even touching on issues like corruption among the officers. It's very well-written and I recommend it, if you can find it. There are three paperback collections, covering issues #1-12, although I think they're all out-of-print.
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