Personal blog - and temporary home page until new website is finished - of writer, editor and graphic artist Christopher Mills


Sunday, May 04, 2008

Weekend Update

Drove down to Casablanca Comics in Portland, Maine on Saturday for Free Comic Book Day. Spent a bit of time with proprietor Rick Lowell and his wife Laura, bought a handful of comics, and picked up a few freebies. It looked like Rick's store was doing brisk business, and I was pleased to see a lot of families there.

On the way home, Brandi and I stopped at a used bookstore in Freeport, where I scored all of Gardner F. Fox's Kothar the Barbarian PBO novels in very good condition. In fact, I bought new, better copies of the two I already had, as well. I'm on record as being a big fan of Fox's fantasy novels, and I'm thrilled to finally have the whole series. Now I just need to find all of his Kyrik books. I also found a copy of John Jakes' Mention My Name in Atlantis, and a first edition of the George Takei (Mr. Sulu)-Robert Asprin science fiction adventure novel, Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe, so it was a pretty good day.

Before reading any of my new scores, though, I have the new Parker novel, Dirty Money, to read. And before I read that, I'm going to re-read the two preceding novels, Nobody Runs Forever and Ask the Parrot. I'm jonesing for a Richard Stark fix, and will be shooting that triple dose of hardboiled right into the main vein, brothers. Talk about a "lost weekend!"

On the film front, we watched I Am Legend Saturday night, and while I thought it was well-produced, directed and acted by Will Smith, I didn't find the CGI cartoon "darkseekers" very frightening at all; stuntmen in make-up with a little CGI "enhancement" would have been so much more effective. I also didn't care for the ending – but then, I think the ending of Matheson's novel is flat-out perfect.

Over the next week, I plan to work on my next DVD review column, finish up a comic book script and try to get a start on scripts for two short stories I've promised to do for a couple of 2009 comics anthologies. One is a revenge story featuring my Gravedigger character, the other is a Western. Want to keep the momentum going, after all!

I also hope that Brandi and I will be able to finagle a screening of Iron Man – by all reports, it's one of the best comic book movies yet!

3 comments:

Craig Zablo said...

Wow! Sounds like you had a great weekend, boss.

I'm looking forward to Stark's Dirty Money as well... haven't picked it up yet, but plan to soon.

You KNOW I loved hearing about a Gravedigger short story!

I enjoyed Will Smith's "I AM LEGEND" and agree with your assessment of the CGI.

Charles Gramlich said...

I've heard Iron man is good too so I'm looking forward to it. The Kothar and Kyrik books are great fun. I've got em all, read em all. The first Kyrik: Warlock, Warrior, was one of the very first sword and sorcery books I ever read and I'll always have a fondness for it.

laughingwolf said...

grats on those finds... sound awesome

i seem to recall there is a pirate version of 'ironman' already on the web....