Along with standard graphic novels, my local library has many of the Marvel Pocketbooks. These are are small, paperback-sized reprints of about a half-dozen classic Marvel comics. They're just perfect for throwing in a bag and reading on public transport. Through them I've been able to read classic Marvel storylines for the first time - Stan Lee and John Romita's Spider-man run, Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men and Stan Lee/Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four. As a recovering Marvel-aholic I already knew the gist of the stories, but actually reading the dialogue and seeing the artwork is something special. Plus, I like laughing hollowly whenever Peter says he couldn't imagine life without Gwen Stacey. Mwahahahaha...

The one bad thing about the Marvel Pocketbook range is that often poor typesetting means the edge is cut off the panels. As dialogue bubbles are usually at the edge of a panel, this results in missing letters and it can be tricky to decipher the text. If I had bought these I'd be furious, but as I got them from the library I'm merely peeved. Still, I much prefer these smaller colour reprints to the usual black-and-white option, and they're a lot more portable than a scan.

One of my missions at Comic-Con is to Dress Up Fancy And Go To The Eisner Awards. It will combine the opportunity to gawk at the folks whose names I see scribbled in the corner of my favourite comics with the opportunity to wear a fancy dress. Perfect, you might think. But the event is usually about 3 hours long and both the announcers and prizewinners are mainly people who could legitimately use the phrase "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking..." Moments like this will be few and far between. To stop myself being bored silly, I have decided to have an Opinion about every category. There are 26 categories, but fortunately I am very opinionated.

I'm not going to try to predict who'll win, or who should win. I am notoriously bad at judging things objectively. I'm more likely to give the rosette to the dog with the happy face and an inside-out ear than actual best-of-breed. But that won't stop me from having an opinion, no sir-ee Bob.

Naturally enough, one of the categories I could quickly check off my list was that of "Best Digital Comic". The 2009 nominees are:

Bodyworld, by Dash Shaw ~ Eh. I couldn't connect to the characters, wasn't interested in what would happen next and didn't read past chapter 4. The art didn't grab me, but I did like the way he  randomly stuck in maps and game rules and so on. The presentation of the comic on the website was fine - it didn't take too long to load and didn't detract from the story. On the plus side, I've just realized how cool a name "Dash" is. Must name something Dash.
 
Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil ~ This is an odd one. The comic at the link seems to be one story from an ongoing saga - not that this is immediately obvious from the site. As a stand-alone story it is confusing and, worst of all, not actually finished. But I liked the art, and the world-building was interesting enough that I certainly intend to track down the dead-tree collections. Of course, I enjoyed Marvel's Onslaught plot-line and have never had a problem following the story in Lost, so that probably means most people will find the confusion off-putting (wusses). The presentation of the strip was nice - it loaded fast and page-turning was intuitive. There was a fair bit of scrolling needed to view the whole page, though.

The Lady's Murder, by Eliza Frye ~ Oh, I did like this one. A great story, told in a great way, with great art. And the presentation of the strip was simple but effective.

Speak No Evil, by Elan Trinidad ~ My favourite of the lot. This is why I love science-fiction. Images from this comic are still creeping me out 24hrs after reading it, which is always a good sign. The art was as much a part of the story as the dialogue. And the presentation was perfect - no scrolling required to see the whole "page", simple clicks anywhere on the image "turned the page" and it had a clear navigation bar underneath. Pretty much perfect.

Vs. by Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari ~ Uh. Not sure what was going on here. Rhyming is cool, I guess. As is "breaking the 4th wall"-style art. But I'm still a bit confused about what was going on. He had bad neighbours? The presentation was awkward, as it takes a bit of poking about to find the navigation bar.

So I have my official Opinion  - "Speak No Evil" was my favourite, followed by "The Lady's Murder". Two thumbs up for both.

I'm going to the San Diego Comic-Con this year.

As a general rule, I love living in Ireland. There are no poisonous animals and death-by-weather is very uncommon. Whatever problems are caused by a lack of vision from Irish shopkeepers (why does no-one stock bamboo clothes?) can be easily solved through a combination of the Internet, my credit card and the post office. But I must admit, we don't have much in the way of SF&F Fandom conventions.

Sure, we get the occasional Big Name dropping by - authors might add us on as part of a European signing tour or universities persuade guest speakers to turn up in exchange for a "Thank you for Visiting Us" award. There's Octocon and a fair few gaming cons. But these are small, intermittent events, and it is getting to the point where I recognise most of the attendees.

So I'm going to the San Diego Comic-Con, the ultimate Fandom experience. Over five glorious days, I will attend panels on every topic under the sun, see everyone who is anyone and queue, queue, queue. I can't wait!

As it is possible Interesting Things may happen to me, I shall be blogging for a bit.