Page Turners: POD

I am currently reading:

Pod by Stephen Wallenfels

Okay so I started this last night and I won't be passing judgement yet but seriously, this book has possibly the most boring cover ever. I have a review cover so it's just got a plain black cover and I was looking forward to seeing something interesting on the real deal but this is it?

These are the alternatives:

I am disappointed. The middle version appears the most online, but the last example is probably the best of a bad bunch. Also no one can seem to decide if it's POD, Pod or P.O.D. on websites.

This is in no way a criticism of the author because you rarely get much of a say in what artwork appears on your cover and I hope that he's happy with it (I know authors who hate their book's covers) and I know that his book has got pretty stellar reviews all round. The actual story sounds really good so I'm hoping that it's better than the cover. Which wouldn't be hard. I'm not sure what I want to cover to look like but the first two just look so incredibly boring that if I saw them in a shop I'd never pick them up. The third one is pretty decent  though.

From Amazon:

POD's - strange alien spheres hover menacingly in the sky, zapping anyone who ventures outside. Will is 15 and stuck in his house with his OCD dad. They're running out of food...Megs is 12, alone and trapped in a multi-storey carpark. The hotel next door is under the control of dangerous security staff, but Megs has something they want, and they'll do anything to get it...When the aliens invade, the real enemy becomes humanity itself. What would you do to survive?

 The most recent book I finished in-between Unleashed and Pod was:

DOGS: Bullets and Carnage Volume 6

It finally arrived and it was so good! I love the whole series and it just gets better with each volume. This volume sees a lot of things starting to make sense in regards to characters backgrounds. But now I'm back at the stage of having to wait another year for the next volume. Boo!

From Amazon:

Boasting furious action, switchback plotting, magnetic characters and dazzling art, Dogs tells the story of four individuals struggling to survive a dystopian urban future by gun and sword and courage and luck.

Sunday Catch Up

Well, first I am sorry for not updating yesterday (I've done it now) but I was ill so spent the day napping and feeling sorry for myself. Not fun. I didn't get any work done yesterday at all! My fiancé was also ill this week, on Valentine's day, so I'm blaming him.

Other than working I have been reading One Piece (I'm up to volume 4 now) and reading DOGS: Bullets and Carnage Volume 6 which was amazing as always and I'm so sad that I have to wait another year for the next volume. I rarely read comic books or manga that are currently being published because I hate having to wait, I like to get a nice buffer in-between.

We ordered our first Chinese in our new house the other day, well it was Thai and Chinese, and we both completely forgot how gross leftover Chinese smells the next day. Ew. What is that? At least it was yummy to eat.

I also decided to print off two pages of one of my novels and see what it would be like as a comic book. Two pages of writing translates roughly to eleven pages of a comic book. For some reason I find that really cool.

I have heard back from any other agent's this week, but they've still got about a month and a bit.

Well, I hope everyone's had a nicer weekend than me!

Feature Friday: Comics

If you read this blog regularly, follow me on twitter or know me in real life then you should be aware of my love for comics. There is something about sequential art that makes me really happy, something about writing with pictures that makes me feel a rush when I discover a new gem.

Now, I read around 14 webcomics regularly, some of which update every day, some update three times a week and some less often. I also read a lot of comic books/graphic novels/manga too but I only really follow a few series. I particularly love big, chunky graphic novels that are one offs.

I am not going to talk about every single comic that I love, because we could be here for hours. Instead I thought I would just introduce you to a few of my favourites. Some of these I may have mentioned before because they're amazing.

Webcomics

Girls With Slingshots

Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto

I started reading Girls With Slingshots a few years ago and it astounds me that it's gone so far! I find it so strange to think back to the older story arcs and the older art style. Danielle is a really lovely person and you can tell that she loves her work. Girls With Slingshots is funny, heart-warming, silly and realistic if a little surreal at times. You can read Girls With Slingshots online or buy the books through the store.

Fishbones

Fishbones by written Jisuk Cho and drawn by Yuki S.

I had known about Fishbones for ages but I only got around to reading it recently. I have no idea what took me so long! This is my kind of story. Teenagers, friendship, the trials of growing up and gangsters. Fantastic. Obviously there is violence and swearing involved, seeing as the comic deals primarily with criminals, so if that's not your thing then you might want to skip it. But for me this is a really great comic and I always look forward to updates. Read it online at the Fishbones website.

Books - Series

DOGS: Bullets and Carnage

DOGS: Bullets and Carnage by Shirow Miwa

You're probably getting sick of me talking about DOGS but it really is my favourite comic book/manga series. This is the cover for the prelude, currently there are seven books in the series and they just keep getting better. 

I'll let the blurb speak for itself: 

Boasting furious action, switchback plotting, magnetic characters and dazzling art, DOGS tells the story of four individuals struggling to survive a dystopian urban future by gun and sword and courage and luck.

 Wet Moon

Wet Moon by Ross Campbell

 This is another one that I knew about for ages but only got around to reading recently. I've followed Ross on deviantART for absolutely ages and always loved his style, and Wet Moon does not disappoint. It can be a little hard to find in stores and Ross himself told me that you generally have to request a copy if you want to buy it in a shop, so I get mine through Amazon. Wet Moon is set in the Deep South, it's gothy, angsty and haunting, it's about friendship, romance, sex, betrayal, gossip, murder, guilt and "all the terrible and wonderful things people do to each other".

Books - Stand alone

Solanin

Solanin by Inio Asano

This one again! Solanin is a gorgeous manga both art-wise and story-wise. If you've ever felt lost and confused about your place in the world, dissatisfied with your job, yearned for something more out of your life and felt stuck between being an kid and an adult then read this. It's realistic, funny and heartbreaking in it's honesty. Meiko is one of my favourite heroines because she's so real. She's not perfect, she's actually very ordinary. She works a job that she hates, has a boyfriend who she loves but is always crashing at her apartment because he can't afford his own place, parents who love her but are a little suffocating and a group of fantastic, if some what immature friends. She wants to be an adult but at the same time feels that she's not cut out to be a part of the real world so is left straddling the line between being a student and being a grown up.

I read Solanin for the first time in my third year of university, but even now two years later as I sit here with two degrees and a writing job I find that the themes in Solanin still ring true, as I imagine they do for many people. 

That is why it is my favourite book, and that is why you should read it.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #10

3 Sequels I Can't Wait For In 2012

Image from: amyr_81

Hallowed

The Spook's Blood 

Once I catch up!

DOGS: Bullets and Carnage Volume 7

There's nothing out about it, but I've seen leaked scans around online so who knows.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #7

6 Favourite Characters Of 2011

Image from: amyr_81

Tom from The Wardstone Chronicles is always a favourite of mine. He's also one of the few characters who has never irritated me at all!

Trista from Wolf Blood. She's strong, courageous and underneath her hard, warrior exterior she's very caring, even if she doesn't show it very much.

Pretty much everyone from The Meek but especially Pinter. I love his expressions and how surly he can be.

Barbara from I Kill Giants. I adore her. I love how she's very tough, sarcastic but very sensitive. I don't want to ruin the story too much through. Read it.

Rosa from Arcadia Awakens. At first I wasn't sure about her, she seemed very typical angsty teenage girl with her gothy clothing (lots of black and spiky boots) but the more you get to know about her past and her family the more you come to understand and love her. You come to realise that she is very clever and very strong, even when her problems seem insurmountable.

Badou from DOGS: Bullets and Carnage. I love most of the characters but there is something special about this chilled, funny and very lucky ginger haired guy who goes crazy when he runs out of cigarettes.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #6

7 Favourite Covers Of 2011

Image from: Anastasia Abramova

I love The Meek and I love the cover. It's so well done. It gives you a good feeling of the comic/graphic novel and also hints at just one of the many story-lines within it's pages. 

Gorgeous, just gorgeous and really sums up the feel of the book.

I wasn't sure about the cover at first because you see a lot of YA romance/fantasy books with the same kind of covers: hot girl in big dress. But I do actually really like the font, the feather, the trees, the colour and I just hope they continue the theme because I've seen another cover floating around for the second book that I do not approve of.

I haven't read it yet, and I've heard mixed reviews, but I do think that the cover is pretty gorgeous.

I love it. I love the cover and I love that it's continued through onto the inside.

I know that it took a while for Gill and the publishers to find a cover that they really liked and thought fit the book. I think it had a few versions, some Gill preferred more than others, but it was this one that won out. I think it's simple and I love the reflections in the osprey's eyes.

I just love the art style of DOGS: Bullets and Carnage. So I pretty much always love the covers.  Giovanni Rammsteiner is a bad-ass and this cover  shows that.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day #5

8 Favourite Books Of 2011

Image from: syd delicious

This list made me realise that I read a lot of books and a lot of comics, and that some how comics always seem to connect with me more powerfully than most novels. Come on writers! Up your game and entice me with stories and characters as awesome as those in my favourite graphic novels! By the way, not all of these books were published in 2011 some are a little older but I only got around to reading them this year, most are parts of a series so do have a newer instalment that came out this year.

I keep thinking about this book. I need the sequel! My life will be incomplete without it!

Loved it, some small niggles but otherwise it's amazing. I'm not very fond of the cover though.

This was published in 2009 but I didn't get to read it until this year. Either way, read The Wardstone Chronicles because they are kick ass.

We own the limited boxset of Girly that was published on demand, so I can't show you the other covers. Girly is an awesome, very strange, very silly and not for kids comic. Expect sex and sillyness and lesbians.

Another comic. I read this one online but there is a book. It doesn't update very often and has been going for a while but read it. It's one of the few webcomics out there that have a really amazing art style and equally amazingly detailed world and story.

Another comic. Read it. Do not research it because you will spoil it. Read it and if you don't love it then, I'm sorry but we can't be friends.

This is not a book about vegetarianism. This is a book about a man finding out about where the meat on his table comes from, what happens to it during it's life, death and after wards, and also what happens to the people involved. I love this book because it is well written and truthful. Nothing is dressed up to sound better or worse than it is. You are not told what to think but presented with the facts and examples so you can make up your own mind. I don't see any reason for someone not to read this book.

This is my favourite manga series. It is an 18+ because it is violent. Seriously. But it's also full of fantastic characters that I love and I also love to hate. Plus most of the characters are super attractive which makes it easy on the eye. The actions scenes are really intense but this isn't your standard boys comic. Yes there's lots of guns and explosions and swearing and gangsters and all that, but the characters all have really interesting pasts and the storyline is deep, dark and drip fed to you. I don't want this series to ever end!