Current Readings

Stopped in at Barnes and Noble tonight. I'd rather forgotten that they stay open until 11:00 each and every night (including the cafe), making it my kind of place.

Picked up all seven volumes of the Nausicaa manga. It really wasn't much of a leap of faith, between my adoration of the anime and my friends' raves about the comic book. I'm going on vacation next weekend, and I'll need quite a bit of reading material. It should do nicely. Might have to drop it off afterwards at the desk of a comic-obsessed but American-centric coworker...

Also picked up the first two volumes of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. I think that Gaiman is one of the most interesting authors writing today, and he made his name with Sandman. Very broadly speaking, the stories follow Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, who is somewhere between the protagonist, antagonist, and narrator. Gaiman did the writing, but there was a different artist almost every issue (rather like American Splendor). If you get into graphic novels at all, this one is VERY high on the list.

PS: Added bonus for Final Fantasy fans: Gaiman recently collaborated on a graphic novel with Yoshitaka Amano, most famous as the character designer for nearly all of the FF games. You know that characteristic look of the game's logos, very dark and flowing? Well, imagine a whole book like that. It rocks.

PPS: Turns out he also wrote the English script for Princess Mononoke, meaning that everything in this post is actually related to everything else.