This slim volume features a selection of cover, trading card, and gallery art from DC Comics' now discontinued Vertigo imprint. A few of the series featured are ones I've read, albeit a very long time ago: Sandman, The Books of Magic, Black Orchid, Swamp Thing, Sandman Mystery Theatre. Most are series I've never heard of before, or heard of but never looked into enough to find out what they were about. I've been meaning to try Animal Man for ages, for example, but it still hasn't happened.

When I was in high school, I'd occasionally use my lunch period to go to a nearby comics shop and buy a few things. The store was arranged by publisher, with imprints getting their own subsections, and an odd "miscellaneous" section to catch anything by smaller publishers. I spent most of my time in the Marvel and "miscellaneous" sections (yay, Elfquest!), but my love of Neil Gaiman's Sandman prompted me to spend time in the Vertigo section as well. Although I never bought many Vertigo titles - I didn't have much money and didn't know which series I might like, and the store owner was so unwelcoming that I didn't dare ask him for recommendations - I loved the covers. They looked so different from the Marvel and other DC stuff.

I spotted this book during a shopping trip years ago and bought it with the intention of using it as artistic inspiration. Nothing ever came of that, but it was still nice looking at all the artwork and huge variety of styles. Each section has a little bit of text, normally something about the history of a particular series. Most of the artwork just has captions with the title and issue number if applicable, date, and artist, but a few include tidbits of info about the artists' style and, very occasionally, something about their technique or the medium used.

All in all, this is a nice collection of artwork. I wish there had been more text focused on particular pieces, though, and interviews with some of the artists would have been great.

 

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

3.7.

Pretty good book about a forty-one year International Journalist Manhattanite mother, Zoe , of a ten year old dyslexic, Maya, who moves to upstate New York for a better school to help with her daughter's problems. It's told in two pov's and the other one is John 'Mack' Mackenna, a local thirty-one year old man who has come back from a tour in Iraq to work as a volunteer EMT and a driving instructor.

They both have their own issues to deal with and to be honest, Mack was the more interesting character.

I noted the ages because through the story you can tell which one is older and a little more sure of themselves but also because it is brought up a few times. It didn't really need to be but it was.

This book is pretty much about independence and healthy dependence, about learning to give up the ghosts of the past and about learning that not everything goes according to plan. There's also a little bit of prejudice thrown in (not racist but cultural - in the sense that Zoe is a bit of a Manhattan snob).

Maya is a fun kid and her words are believable. It's sometimes hard to write a smart kid without making them sound forty-seven but here, it works.

Mack and Zoe have a flirtation and it deepens as he becomes her chauffeur and then her driving instructor. There is a clash between the two of them and for that I blame Zoe more than Mack, but you'll have to see.

This book could've been better by giving us a little more back-story into Zoe as well as a better ending. I was a little unsatisfied by the last paragraph of the book because while Zoe has changed, it almost seemed like she went right back to the Zoe at the beginning of the book.

I get the feeling the publishers didn't quite know what to do with this one. It's far more serious and literate a story than you'd expect from looking at it, though I also tend to agree with the "Romance Reader" review that said, pretty much, "this is a romance, why the heck isn't it with the romances?" At any rate, the combination of good prose plus romance is pretty much an automatic win with me, so I liked this book a lot.