Current Readings

  I have noticed something that has been happening to me lately. When a beloved artist passes away, I feel the need, beyond the expected urge to revisit their work, the legacy they leave behind, which was always the only relationship I had with them in the first place, to read something related to them. Just as I did after Ozzy’s passing, when I reread the autobiographies of Lemmy and Halford , today I will talk to you about Al Pacino , since not long ago Robert Duvall also left us. What is interesting here, however, is that although I could have chosen to read Ozzy’s autobiography, I instead picked one written by a friend of his. Why? I think I simply wanted to remember, to recall, to “place myself” close to that feeling that even though these people are no longer here with us, some kind of connection still remains, either through their art or through a record of their journey. After finishing Lemmy’s book I moved on to Halford’s , in order to complete, in a way, this short journ...

  Second time reading this book and I am certain there will be a third. It easily ranks among my favorite and, in my view, among the best novels published by the Black Library. I am not sure I have encountered another Warhammer 40K novel that manages to accomplish so much in just 314 pages. Of course, it helps that it was written by Bowden , yet he is not the only outstanding author working with the company. Still, in this case he reaches a peak that seems to condense everything one might hope to find in this universe. We have betrayal, violence, reversals, melancholy, futility, clashes and killings, self-destruction, alienation and doubt, rule through fear, Grey Knights, the Inquisition, Chaos enemies, and the Space Wolves, what more could one ask for? The only thing missing is the Emperor trading blows with Horus, but that took place at another time. It is genuinely impressive how Bowden achieves this balance between a character-centered narrative, with a clear protagonist in the...

There’s more hunger in the world than love. Image publishes many remarkable comics, and Monstress is one of them. I had preordered Compendium One a few months before its release, and there was a delay that made me anxious, as for a moment I thought my order might be canceled. Fortunately, that did not happen, and now this massive volume sits on my shelf, from which I have read the first six issues that make up the initial paperback. I did not want to read it straight through and start and finish all 1,152 pages at once because, as always with something I truly enjoy, I prefer to follow the rhythm of my mood while also setting a stopping point for the future, so that something remains waiting for me a little longer. This is especially true with comics, where the reading pace tends to be faster. The sentence I quoted at the beginning appears in the opening pages and stayed with me. It is one of those thoughts that make immediate sense and feel self evident, yet I had never articulat...

The structure changes in the third volume of Criminal, The Dead and the Dying . We follow three stories, each with a different protagonist, yet connected, though not always knowingly or willingly. That is the first shift in the famous Brubaker – Phillips series, but not the only one. Other elements are just as easy to notice and worth paying attention to. In Second Chance in Hell we meet Jake, a boxer and a survivor, a tough man who knows how to endure hardships. Unfortunately, he ends up becoming a victim. You could argue that everyone here is a victim in one way or another, but Jake is singled out even more, and what sets him apart is that he still tries to hold on to a sense of morality, as much as that is possible in this bleak world. In A Wolf Among Wolves, Teeg is a monster. He wasn’t always one, but the war transformed him. Whatever he might have wanted to do or to give, it all drowned in the mire of violence, power, and drugs. Danica appears in The Female of the Species, ...