New Year and Restless

Christmas came and went with a woosh, speeding past in a blur of panicked visits to airports, sitting on planes, much German food (mainly sausage of one sort or another), a long trip down south across a country blanketed white, with frozen windscreen nozzles and long delays for accidents. Visits to hospital to check on my Father-in-law, see my Grandmother, and the rest of the family. Helping to clear a house out, cooking a ham and a long trip back north.

New year came and went with a woosh, speeding past but spending a pleasant evening out for dinner and finding two big boxes filled with copies of my first novel ‘The Missing’ delivered to a neighbour and no contact at all with my publisher.

‘Juvie’ has also been finished.

So all in all, I don’t feel very rested and I’m probably in need of a break, but I have far too much to do and still not enough hours in the day.

I also forgot to make any kind of New Year resolution.

****

I did get to do a bit of reading so here’s a quick run down:

God of Clocks, third in the series in ‘The Deepgate Codex’ is complicated by time shifts. Hell is still a fully realised horrific place and Carnival is still the best character, but in other areas I wanted more.

Asterios Polyp is one of best comics I’ve read in a long time. Carefully crafted, whimsical but full of depth and interest. Clever and amazing.

The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch, is slight and probably not worthy of being turned into a single comic book. It should have been left as a short story. Though interesting to see Jonathon Ross and his wife in comic book format.

Batman: War Games Act One, is classic Batman with a full cast of character and plenty of punch.

Pictures that Tick is a series of short works by Dave McKean. Here you can see his evolution as an artist and comic book creator as he tries different ways in which to present stories and experiments with the form. A thrilling book.

No Dominion and Half the Blood of Brooklyn, are books two and three in the Joe Pitt saga, vampyre and Chandler-esque bad boy in New York City. Fast paced with cool dialogue and thrilling to the end.

Read this Week:

God of Clocks by Alan Campbell

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch by Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli, Todd Klein.

Pictures that Tick by Dave McKean

No Dominion and Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston