So, I just survived another San Diego Comic-Con. It was an amazing weekend of meeting new friends, making business contacts, and buying books . . . buying lots of books. You see, I have a bit of a problem. I buy way more books than I can read, and when a new convention rolls around, I do it all over again. I decided at this year’s show that I needed to remedy this somehow.

 My wife reminded me of one of our favorite books, The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, a collection of articles where Hornby tries to tackle his own book obsession. So, I decided to steal his idea and apply it to my graphic novel obsession. Over the next year, I will regularly blog about my graphic novel reading habits. I will start each blog with a list of which books are on my ‘To Read’ list, which books I’ve bought, and which books I read. I will then blog about why I bought what I did, why I read what I did, and what I thought about what I read.

This is mostly a therapeutic way to deal with my obsession but may also be an interesting experiment in blogging and graphic novel reviews. Stick around and see what the wonderful world of comics holds for me. Without further ado, the ‘To Read’ List:

To Read before San Diego:
A Tale of Sand by Ramon K. Perez
Moriarty: the Dark Chamber by Daniel Corey, Anthony Diecidue, Perry Freeze, and Dave Lanphear
Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
The Light by Nathan Edmondson and Brett Weldele

Bought at San Diego Comic Con:

Princeless: Save Yourself by Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin
Lost Dogs by Jeff Lemire
Snarked: Forks and Hope by Roger Langridge
The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
Skullkickers Vol. 1 & 2 by Jim Zub, Edwin Huang, and Misty Coats
Siegfried by Alex Alice
Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
The Unwritten by Mike Carey

Read This Week:

Skullkickers Vol. 1 & 2 by Jim Zub, Edwin Huang, and Misty Coats
The Unwritten by Mike Carey

So yeah, this week being Comic-Con, I bought more books than I could hope to read. At Comic-Con I bought Princeless and Snarked, because they are some of the best All Ages books around. Snarked even won an Eisner this year for best All Ages book. I went to a Jeff Lemire panel that was so good and inspirational that I had to go out and buy some of his books. I bought Lost Dogs and Underwater Welder, because they are his first book and his latest book respectively. I figured I’d see his journey as a creator. Siegfried just looked beautiful, so I had to get it, plus the publisher, Archaia, produces amazing books. I also went to the Kate Beaton panel, and she is so funny I just had to buy Hark! A Vagrant.

Skullkickers is kind of a guilty pleasure, because I love books that explore or poke fun at role-playing games. First off, the art in this book is amazing and really pulls you in right off the bat. Skullkickers is just this wild ride from start to finish. It’s really funny and action packed. If you play RPGs, it will be even funnier, but I think even if you don’t it’s just a good story. Definitely excited to see more work from Jim Zub.

I bought Unwritten in one of those 50% off bins at Con. I knew a friend was looking for it, and it was too good of a deal to pass up. Then, we had to wait in a line for about an hour, so I started reading it. It was so engrossing that I actually read it throughout the panel we had waited in line for, because I just couldn’t put it down. It’s this really strange mystery involving authors of fairy tales. I know it sounds strange, but Mike Carey is such a good writer. He really grounds the book with very believable and interesting characters that make the fantasy stuff easier to swallow. The only bad part is that now I have to go find the rest of the series, so that I can figure out the mystery, all while I still have so much else to read.

So, that’s the ‘To Read’ list for now. Feel free to comment if you want to suggest which books in the list I should read next. Also, if you want to be mean, you can suggest books I need to add to to the list, and I’ll try to hunt them down and do just that. If you want to discuss any of the books further, follow me on twitter; I’m @JasonEnright. Until next time, keep reading!