Young Bill Young here. Sadie is in slow wireless land, so she’s asked me to do another post. I happily oblige! Here goes. . .

The 2009 Hugo Awards have been announced, and the winning graphic story is “Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones” by Kaja & Phil Foglio.

The set-up: Agatha Clay is a student at Transylvania Polygnostic University and a total klutz.( You know there’s fun in store!)

Writer Kaja has a message regarding the honor on the Girl Genius website. Plus, you can follow Girl Genius online, beginning with the very first story. Congrats to the Girl Genius creators.

The L.A. Times Blog explains the controversy.

Comics Worth Reading has the follow up.

What are your thoughts?

I can’t believe that any judge will entertain a lawsuit to stop a lawsuit.  What kind of precedent will that set?  With the announcement of Sonia Sotomeyer as the new Supreme Court Judge, who has a background in intellectual property law, I wonder just how far this case can go?

I’m going to consult my lawyer and get back to this.

Turning Pages is volume 5 and is a good jumping in point.  The first story is sort of unnecessary.  Way back in they day (before the events in Fables)  Jack is the leader of an Old West gang, killing lawmen and stealing horses, the whole bit.  Sheriff Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf) gets wind of this criminal behavior and sets out to bring Jack back.   While it’s a fun story, it’s mainly filler.   Though it is interesting to see Bigby before Snow White manages to calm him down.

After that brief interlude, comes the stories of the three Page sisters.  They are Literals and librarians working at the Golden Boughs Retirement Community (it’s not nearly as nice as it sounds).   Their background stories lead into what appears to be a very sticky situation for Jack.

This isn’t the strongest volume in the series but it’s nice to have a break from the building action.  Willingham and Sturges  make sure to keep the laughs up, even as the stakes get high.  One of the best things about this series is the use of American Fables like Paul Bunyan and his strange blue ox Babe.  Like the original series, this one is packed with imagination.

If you’re looking for a delightful prose read that’s a lot like these series, pick up the Thursday Next mysteries by Jasper Fforde.

This series is fun and single-handedly seemed to set off a new art style.  Hardly any artists can draw square-jawed, wide-eyed characters without being called Pilgrim posers.  These blocky illustrations perfectly set off the quirky, slacker cast.  Scott Pilgrim is a 20 something muscician with no real drive except to love Ramona.  For her part, Ramona is a mysterious woman who travels between dimensions and yes, has some evil past relationship woes.  Backing them up are their friends, always willing to lend a helping hand if there’s money or food or fun to be had.

So far Scott has battled 4 exes and the newly released Volume 5 promises even more romantice action!

The series has proven to be so popular that there’s a live action movie being filmed (some questionable casting with Michael Cera as Scott – I would have thought someone more like Elijah Wood but no one asked me.)

If you are looking for romance, adventure and some ex-boyfriends in need of some serious attitude readjustment, then fall in love with Scott Pilgrim!

The small limited series is deceptive.  At first it seems like just another mecha story, but once inside the pages it quickly becomes clear that in this case, the robot is in charge.  The robot can feel pain and apparently some form of emotion.  The case for his emotion is that in order to save his fellow human team members he must feel something for them.  This emotion drives him to be a hero, however, it also leaves him lonely.  He watches the men and women he loved grow old, leave his team and eventually die.  But through it all he keeps his mouth running and his fists punching.

A good one for all ages, I highly recommended an afternoon with Robo.

Here he discusses his career, the movies and what he hopes for the future.  I’m looking forward to the Coraline movie, especially because the graphic novel was a disappointment.

Black Jack by Osamu Tezuka – have I talked about this mange enough yet?  No?  Ok, let me reiterate.  This story about a talented yet mad doctor is both heartwarming AND gory.  A perfect gift!

Ghost World, Special Edition by Daniel Clowes -  ok, I admit I saw the movie before reading the book.  I liked the movie, loved the book.  I don’t usually compare the two but this deluxe edition includes the movie screenplay so obsessives can sit and pick apart the differences.  It also includes a “where are they now” comic!  Awesome!

Hellboy 2: The Chained Coffin, the Right Hand of Doom, and Others by Mike Mignola -  they claim this list isn’t just for nerds but include a “velvet-bound, over-sized book that showcases [Mignola's] his stunning art to it’s fullest”.  I don’t know about you but the only person who gets excited over my absolute or deluxe editions is a total (cute) nerd.  So if you know one, trust me, big giant comics that feel really heavy are the perfect gift!

Local by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly – I became a fan of Brian Wood after his collection of short stories, Demo.  Local is just as good, if not better.  Plus, it includes a chapter set in Norman!  Nothing like seeing your local haunts depicted in a story about loss and depression is there?

Kramer’s Ergot #7 edited by Sammy Harkham – I haven’t read it but I can’t go a single day without hearing about it.

Gifts they recommend that I would pass on:

DC Vault and Marvel Chronicles – two histories of the giants, complete with memorabilia and an insane price tag.

Will Eisner’s The Spirit: A Pop-Up Graphic Novel by Will Eisner – yay!  Sexism!  Racism! In 3D!  Include a pair of tickets to the awful looking movie to really make someone uncomfortable this Christmas.  *Disclaimer* I know Eisner is a genius but really, the Spirit needs some updating and Darwyn Cook’s version doesn’t really manage it.

I don’t think any of this is necessarily the fault of the creator Faith Erin Hicks.  Certainly her artwork suited the story.  It’s in the same vein as Scott Pilgrim but feels more real and her character’s expression have more depth.  She does a good job of making her readers care about these characters, especially the quirky, shy Cassie.  Unfortunately, the characters are more like caricatures.   Every stock character from every 80s movie I’ve ever seen is there.  The spunky poor outsider, the evil rich princess, the shy kid, the henchmen.  I think Hicks is aware of this and plays it up; the rich girls actually calls her conformist friends “minions”.  But the fact still remains that they don’t ever get fully developed.

Part of it is probably me.  In these types of stories I’m almost always on the villain’s side.  Am I twisted?  I just see their point of view and they get the best lines.  I admire the villain’s sense of herself and what she thinks she deserves.  Sure it’s mean and misguided but charming.  The underdog always ends up annoying me.  There was an episode of 30 Rock recently where a grown up Liz Lemon realizes that she wasn’t the snappy geeky kid she thought she was, rather she was a highschool bully.  Jun reminds me of that – a highschool geek bully.  Is that any better than the rich bully?  Of course, Jun’s bulling is done in the name of justice and somehow, that makes me even more annoyed with it.  I know, I am not a good reader.

Then there’s the ending…which…whatever.  I don’t want to put out any spoilers but I’ll ask this of those who have read it – do you believe it?  Do you think it was real?

What are you getting the kids for Christmas?  Oh, Naruto?  Duh.

Welcome to the manga edition.  Here’s some links to reviews of I’ve read recently, or not so recently and never found time to review on my own.  Plus, a lot of these reviewers are so much more eloquent than me!

If you are looking for a ton of manga news, reviews and industry insider stuff definitely visit MangaBlog.  Go, right now!!

I can’t believe About.com has manga reviews but here’s one of Wendy Pini’s Masque of the Red Death.  I pretty much agree with this reviewer’s assessment except for one thing:  how can “steamy love scenes” possibly be a con?

Apparently, I’m twisted cause I love Fairy Cube.

The Anime News Network reviews Vol. 1-2 of You’re So Cool.   While I really enjoyed the artwork, especially “punk” Seung-Ha, this manhwa was just ok.

High School Debut is definitely one of my favorite series this year and volume 6 is reviewed here!

It’s not a new release but Junko Mizuno’s Hansel and Gretal is definitely worth your time.  Find out what it’s all about!

I love Bill Willingham’s series about storybook characters run out of their world by a ruthless, cunning and blood hungry adversary.  They settle in our world, living among us “mundies” while planning a return to their homelands and thwarting the Adversaries plans to invade their new settlement.  It’s exciting and the imagination packed into the pages is outstanding.   The plot is tight, the characters are complex and the color is gorgeous.  How will that translate to the screen?

One problem I see is the amount of characters.  Almost every fable I’ve ever heard of is represented and most of them play an integral part.  There’s been criticism of David Semel’s Heroes (love it) for having too many characters and not enough time to develop them all.  I don’t see how they can avoid that here.

Another problem is the Farm.  The Farm is an annex in upstate New York where the fables who can’t fit in are forced to live.  So the Three Little Pigs and the Three Bears and others are understandably a little upset at their exclusion from the rest of the settlement.  In the second volume, they attempt a rather bloody coup.  It will be hard to take this to real life without making it look like Babe meets Rob Zombie.  I suppose the creators could make the farm animals cartoons.  That might be kind of awesome.

Finally, I can forsee a problem with the atmosphere.  Fables is, at its heart, a story about war and loss.  There’s lots of humor and the spin off series Jack of Fables is fairly lighthearted but most of the original series is covered in a sense of fear.  How do you make Rose Red seem fearful without being, I don’t know, hokey?  Or have Snow White fall in love with the Big Bad Wolf without going all Lois and Clark?