j – Page 9 – Triple Take

J’s Take on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill and some other people has a really good premise. England? In the 1800s? Well-known fictional characters forming a band of super-agents for the British government? What’s not to like?

Unfortunately, the execution leaves much, much, much, MUCH to be desired. I recall being intrigued by the movie, and liking it fairly well. Though it did have problems, even if I can’t now necessarily put my finger on the problems. Well, the comic/graphic novel has a lot of problems.

Plot: Wilhelmina Murray (whoever she is) takes on the mission of assembling a team. First she tracks down Quartermain (whoever he is.. I gather some sort of long-lived, possibly immortal, dead? adventurer dude) and together with Captain Nemo, they get Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man. Then they set out to find some substance called ‘cavorite’ that’s some anti-gravity substance. And if they don’t retrieve it, the evil Chinese will take over the world. Or something.
Continue reading “J’s Take on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1”

J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 4.1 and 4.2

The last two volumes of the manga series “Planetes” by Makoto Yukimura are numbered 4.1 and 4.2. As for actual manga content, they really are one volume. Roughly a quarter to half the content of each is text, background information on space and the world of the story.

Volume 4.1

Hachimaki, the person I thought was our main character, is completely absent from this (half)-volume. He’s off on his way to Jupiter. Meanwhile, we get some side stories and backstories for other people he collected space junk with. One of them gets to know a creepy dude with an Elvis bouffant hairdo and poor grammar. He claims to be an alien. Which fact is supposed to explain why he grabbed another woman’s boob in greeting. Is he an alien? We never know for sure. But his apology for the boob-grabbing seems to go down all right.

Another story is about landmines planted by.. I’m never quite sure. The US government? Maybe. I have to say the politics of the whole thing left me baffled. I don’t know if it was partly the translation’s fault, as there seemed to be several names for one faction. Continue reading “J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 4.1 and 4.2”

J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 1-3

PLANETES is a five volume manga series. Or four volumes. They’ve numbered it 1, 2, 3, 4-1, and 4-2. So take your pick. The mangaka is Makoto Yukimura or Yukimura Makoto. Again, take your pick.

This review is of the first three volumes.

The first volume starts off interesting. There’s these two people travelling together on a shuttle. And I think they’re both guys, but it turns out they’re not. I would have that problem again later, but it was most striking in this first scene. Well, so there’s an accident, and the woman dies. And then it’s 6 years later, which is really annoying. Because now I have to get oriented all over again, with new characters.

So these new characters are space junk gatherers. Can you hear the Klingons yelling at Scotty that the Enterprise is a garbage scow? I can! But, really, you don’t want all that space junk cluttering up the orbits. It’s a real hazard. Kills people who look like guys when they’re really girls.

Plot? Well, one of the main character’s coworkers is all broody because of that wife he lost back on the first few pages. And at the same time, there’s eco-terrorists going around blowing up smoking rooms. Because astronauts need places to smoke their cigarettes, y’all!
Continue reading “J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 1-3”

J’s Take on Wil Wheaton’s Memories of the Future, Part 1

I’m so out of things, I never would’ve known Wil Wheaton had another book out if K hadn’t told me. In this book, he collects summaries he wrote for TV Squad of first season Star Trek: TNG eps. It’s summary, it’s snark, it’s reminiscences, it’s geek.

At first I thought this would be a quick read, but when I started reading, I changed my mind about that. It has to be read slowly, to appreciate all the jokes. And to take the humor in small doses.

But then I changed my mind again. The episodes after the first couple didn’t seem as funny. I don’t think it’s really because they were less funny, but more that he’d lost my sense of newness and surprise by that point. Which is a key component of humor. But of course I plowed ahead anyway. It ended up being a very quick read for me.
Continue reading “J’s Take on Wil Wheaton’s Memories of the Future, Part 1”

J’s Take on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and bleh

I’m the one who suggested we read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, for October, in the spirit of Halloween. So of course it figures that I’m the last one to finish it, and not until December. It was a hard slog. Not quite as hard as Point of Hopes, but less things compelling me to keep reading. I definitely would’ve abandoned it after a few pages if I wasn’t obligated to keep going.
Continue reading “J’s Take on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and bleh”