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Three Books From Plan 9
Plan Nine Publishing has done a wonderful thing for the online comic. Founded in 1996, they've helped to legitimize the medium. Dedicated (and new!) fans can now purchase printed collections of their favorite comics, bringing financial stability to a new generation of artist. The books themselves are lovingly designed, if one step below mass-market professional. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a hundred pages (and several months) of art.
Bruno Most Wanted author Ian McDonald pages 168 ISBN 1-929462-22-0 summary Witty, episodic satire about Rothland's most notorious criminal.
Ian McDonald's Bruno the Bandit chronicles the misadventures of an increasingly inept thief and his micro-dragon sidekick. In this second collection of daily strips, the appropriately named Bunkleyutz tangles with everyone from the Imperial Guard to an undead, mostly evil sorcerer turned bartender. Despite (or because of) Bruno's mind-numbing incompetence, he's always a sympathetic character.
McDonald is an extremely talented artist. His detailed drawings convey a good blend of action and humor, his gags land true, and somehow everything looks easy. Logically, the comic is naturally divided into smaller stories, generally between two and seven weeks long. This gives McDonald a chance to explore an episodic format.
Bruno doesn't shy away from controversy. This collection includes McDonald's edgiest story ever, "No Offense!" It's a sympathetic look at faith, religion, and television. Other topics include unionization, syndication, the forbidden topic, fame and publicity, and raising children. (It makes more sense in stories.) A special bonus color story of Bruno's youth rounds things out.
Lavishly illustrated and wittily plotted, Bruno Most Wanted is a clever and thought provoking collection.
Yippy Skippy, the Evil! author Pete Abrams pages 154 ISBN 1-929462-23-9 summary Aliens, vampires, robots, assassins, demons, rabbits, magic, Evil, and college students.
Pete Abrams' Sluggy Freelance continues to break new ground creatively. A simple description could not do it justice -- Abrams weaves bizarre threads into twisted patterns. What kind of evil lurks in the heart of an ordinary kitten? Attempting to unravel things even further without delving into the entire twisted history is probably NP-hard. At heart, it's a simple tale about a freelance web designer and his lovable pet bunny. Think Calvin and Hobbes meets Aliens meets Red Dwarf.
Yippy Skippy, The Evil, the fifth Sluggy Freelance, picks up with a chilling tale of Y2K disaster. Ferret-spread nanobots threaten the world, and only a rogue vampire and time traveling scientist can fix things. From there, a love spell goes wrong, leading to mishaps involving a killer robot gymnast assassin and a shotgun wedding. After a brief detour explaining half of the title (and setting events in motion for the next book), Abrams raises the question, "What happens when your alien secretary eats too many potatoes?"
What follows is a fun-filled attempt to escape an enraged rabbit. (Baywatch hath charms to soothe the savage breast. No pun intended.) From there, Adams tries his hand at mostly-straightforward horror. "The Evil" tracks the adventures of several college students on vacation in a small town. Unbeknownst to them, the devil has been there already. Who will survive? What do you serve his spawn?
Admittedly, this kind of humor is not for everyone. It can be alarmingly irreverent, and the body count is surprisingly high for not being graphic. It's terribly creative, though, and Abrams continues to tell a fine story. Book 5 may not be the best place to start, but Yippy Skippy, The Evil has the potential to recruit a new army of Sluggites.
For the Birds author Bill Holbrook pages 142 ISBN 1-929462-18-2 summary Divorced herbivore + widowed carnivore = nature's truest blended family.
The unbelievably prolific (cyborg?) Bill Holbrook writes three (cyborg!) regular strips. For the Birds is his ninth Plan 9 collection, and the fifth featuring his Kevin and Kell strips. The deceptively simple artwork and matter-of-fact tranquility belie the harsh rule of nature. (Where else would a parent's biggest dilemma be whether to raise a baby hybrid rabbit/wolf to eat meat or not?)
Through the anthropomorphism, Holbrook pokes fun at modern, geeky subjects. Where else would a hunter track prey by waiting for their cell phones to ring? The gags don't get in the way of a sweet story, though. At heart, Kevin and Kell is a gentle story punctuated with several surprises. Holbrook has created a rich world with interesting characters.
The book explores several themes, including family, responsibility, and love. Though nature can be brutal, the world is full of good "people". Holbrook examines ideas of prejudice (domesticated versus wild species, love between predator and prey) but never comes across as preachy. Throughout the several storylines, he always finds time to insert a chuckle or two. (Who else but a chameleon would stoop to typo-squatting?)
After five books, there's plenty of backstory, but the characters are compelling and the humor gentle. For The Birds should appeal to a wide audience looking for something a little more compelling than the daily comics but a little tamer than the Slugfest.
You can't currently purchase Yippy Skippy, the Evil or For the Birds and Bruno Most Wanted at Fatbrain, but you may be able to special order from there or some other vendor.
pages (Var
Odd bracket error there, old chap!
I quite like "The Norm" (http://www.thenorm.com/) and "Red & Rover" (http://www.unitedmedia.com/wash/redandrover/)
> For everyone who thought that the article might
> be about AT&T's Plan 9 operating system, here's
> a link...
Sigh. I can see that some intensive re-education is in order:
Plan Nine from Outer Space
They're writing books with pens in 2001 ? And this is a network-aware publisher, eh ?
I highly recommend you start from the first strip. Everything makes so much more sense that way.
Sluggy? Make sense? I didn't think it had done that since Bugsquishers.
Sluggy's great, but if unresolved plot threads make your stomach queasy, stay away. Go in for the humour and surrealism, not the plot.
For everyone who thought that the article might be about AT&T's Plan 9 operating system, here's a link...
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/
At first, I was surprised that three books were being released on this operating system. I was further surprised to read that the operating syetm was being used in a publishing house. Finally, I was surprised to see that none of this was true and that Plan 9 is also the name of a comic book publisher.
Is this off topic? Maybe. But if you go and read the story intro without an understanding of any of the proper names, you'll the mistake makes a bit of sense.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Garrote is most certainly a verb as well as a method/instrument. There is no such word as garote. And the verb wasn't supposed to be past tense.
garrote is a _method_ not a past tense verb.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Maybe tablets, actually.
Cartoons! Cartoons! I bet they're not drawing them with TeX.
("Arrrh -- why we didn't have 'pens' in my day -- we had to make do with elaborate descriptions and charcoal-tipped bones, and we *liked* it!")
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
You can also get all of these books (and others) directly from Plan 9. They give the authors more royalties for those sales.
Also, if you're going to start reading Sluggy Freelance, I highly recommend you start from the first strip. Everything makes so much more sense that way.
..oh, never mind.
Damn... who cares about THAT shit. Operating systems? The title of the article made me think it was going to be about the movie ! I am actually interested in that...
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
Is there anywhere that I can go and get these comics as e-books? I looked on the newsgroup and didn't see any.
Just no PDF, I'm boycotting Adobe.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I have to second the idea to check out sinfest. It is silly, irreverent, and interesting. Well worth the few moments a day to read.
-Mynn the Museless
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
damn...
.html, bastards! Flem! Now with fixed link!
Flem! is http://flem.dhs.org/comic/new.htm not
Computational Madness in a round package.
I've been reading Sluggy for a while now, it really is a good comic. Though lately I haven't been reading it as much. Instead I've been reading alot of Flem! Penny Arcade! and Sinfest. I'm sure most of us have heard of Penny arcade, and possibly Sinfest. Flem however is a little more unkown and uncommon. It's good though. I really do enjoy it, heh.
Here are some links.
http://flem.dhs.org/comic/new.html Flem!
http://www.sinfest.net Sinfest
http://www.penny-arcade.com Penny-Arcade
Computational Madness in a round package.
Jeez, when I saw the headline, I thought you were reviewing books on the obscure operating system.
--
Is your company running tools written by ma