Comix

I take it back about Astro City; it's more like magical realism than YA-superheroDeconstruction. So long as you can accept that superheroes, mad scientists, and the occasional blundered alien invasion really can exist out in open society, then this book sets up a very believable world that I find as much fun to explore as the psionic-filled societies of PKD's better novels (such as Ubik). And the stories themselves even work as straight-up superhero tales, rather than the self-parody or academic examination that I've come to expect in "mature" supers comics.

Carla said that it's no longer in print; too bad. Then again, judging by the author's intro to the letter columns of the dozen or so issues I read last night, it had a spotty production schedule to begin with; maybe it is just on hiatus. I'll look into it.

I also found and read 300, a Frank Miller/Lynn Varley miniseries from a few years ago about Spartans. It was a nice read, but my inner James Lileks kept making conncections between the noble but doomed Spartan soliders, and modern-day suicide bombers. I saw different sorts of tragedy than the book's creators probably intended, way back in 1998.