Read in 2011 #4-6

I've gotten terribly behind on this ;_; So y'all really only gonna get a quick line or two. And so few books! I mean, I read a lot, but it's often spot reading through RPG books. Which totally doesn't count.

Book #4: Basara, vol 1 by Yumi Tamura
I swear this series was written by someone in my head. Girl masquerading as her (dead) twin brother to lead people in rebellion against tyrants? What more do I really need? Especially since the layout's straightforward enough it's one of the few manga I can actually follow without getting a headache. Normally I have a lot of trouble reading manga, both because of the right-to-left-ness, and because panel layout tends to be more... uneven? than western comics. But Basara hits the sweet spot.

Now if it wasn't so damn hard to find ;_;

Book #5: Artesia, vol 1: The First Book of Dooms by Mark S. Smylie (author and artist)
(note: this is a re-read)
I was turned onto this graphic novel series via the RPG of it (shut up), which had gotten recommended to me as a good example of lifepath-style character creation. The art in the game was really neat (done by the same man who does the comic), and the world background sounded facinating. So when everchangingmuse and I were are her comic shop, I had them order me volume one. And now I also has volumes 2 & 3, so I decided to re-read vol. 1. It really is an amazingly fascinating story, with a very strong, sex-positive female main character who totally kicks ass. There's a lot of nudity, but it's not gratuitous or done just for cheesecake purposes. It's something I highly, highly recommend to anyone really.

Also, why did I just now find out volume 4 is out?

Book #6: Penny Arcade: Attack of the Bacon Robots! by, well, the Penny Arcade boys.
And now for something completely different. Picked this up at McKays today and read through it this evening. It's a collection of their webcomic strips from 1998-2000, and it's interesting to see how much better their art is now. Really, Penny Arcade just amuses me.