It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m curled up with my family watching the animated adventures of Batman. As you do. It seems oddly appropriate considering how my year in reading ended up!

In September, it looked unlikely that I’d even hit 100 books read this year, let alone equal the 120 books I read in 2010. But then I took an interest in the DC Reboot, and one of my best friends rediscovered comics and started raving about the Ultimate Spiderman, and one thing led to another, and my house spontaneously filled with graphic novels.

So, yes. My total books read for the year is 143. Of which 61 are graphic novels/manga, all but one of which were consumed in the last three months. YEAH BABY.

Let’s talk about those first. I’ll do a separate post about the actual prose books, for those people (cough, Alisa) who aren’t interested in comic books.

My stand out graphic novels/trade paperbacks for the year were:

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The Wonder Woman Chronicles: Vol. One

This was a ridiculously exciting find – the first ten months or so of Wonder Woman comic stories from her debut in All Star Comics (Dec 1941) and several espionage-themed serials in Sensation Comics, through to the launch of her very own title in the summer of 1942 – all collected in graphic novel form. I was intrigued to see how Wonder Woman was established right from the beginning, as part of my ongoing quest to look at how she has been portrayed over the years, and why it seems to be so impossible to script a movie with her in the central role.

What struck me at first was that I already knew Wonder Woman’s origin story perfectly. There were no surprises in seeing it in its original form: indeed, it comes across as very much a by-the-numbers version of the story that has been repeated apparently with little changing for about 70 years.

Her entire first story takes place on Paradise Island, and begins with Steve Trevor’s plane crashing. Diana, daughter of the island’s queen, nurses the unconscious man and falls in love with him without him opening his eyes or saying a word. Yep, he’s just that hot and manly. No one is surprised by this, least of all Diana’s mother. We do rather get the impression that his gender is the only important thing about this love story, which is… well, nicely reversed, I suppose, if about as romantic as Snow White and her Prince with the creepy dead-woman fetish.

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I heard about these comics from somewhere and snapped up the first collected volume when I found it in my local library. In 1968, Wonder Woman underwent a major reinvention. All of the elements essential to her character – her powers, costume, and chisel-chinned love interest Steve Trevor, were removed so that Diana could go through a Carnaby Street makeover. Equipped with new martial arts skills, a rugged private eye sidekick, an elderly Chinese mentor and the very latest in hip and groovy outfits, Diana Prince became a new kind of force to be reckoned with.

It’s a little bizarre to see such an iconic character plunged so specifically into the pop culture of the Swinging Sixties. You would be forgiven for thinking these comics were actually created in the 90′s as an Austin Powers style spoof, given how laden they are with cliches of the time period. There are nightclubs full of hip cats, London boutiques full of groovy threads, and people say things like “you better bug out, doll… the fuzz frowns on chicks cruisin’ in this pad solo” entirely without irony.

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As you all may have guessed by now, I’ve been reading my way through the Graphic Novels section of the Hugo packet. It’s been a really interesting way for me to get a taste for what is out there, and has been easing me back into graphic novels as a format – already I’ve been looking beyond this shortlist and picking up other titles from my local library!

But I’m not going to be reading Captain Britain, by Paul Cornell. Which is a shame, because I was looking forward to it. I’m interested in Cornell as a writer, and also in the idea of a British superhero… but sadly this is the one Hugo-nominated graphic novel on the shortlist whose publishers decided to make it complicated.

The others all provided the works in a pdf format that I found easy to open, navigate and customise on my computer, for comfortable reading. This one instead provides an html link that opens a web reader which feels fussy and annoying, strains my computer’s capacity, and basically is trying too hard to control how I might want to read it. And oh yes, they only provided two issues as a ‘sample’ rather than the entire work.

I realise at this point that I am basking in utter entitlement. Only a year or two ago, the concept of a Hugo packet, of voters receiving a whole bunch of free works to help educate their vote, was revolutionary. Indeed I think this is the first year that every shortlisted work is represented in the packet, though I could be wrong in that.

But… yeah. Over-entitled I may be, but the fact remains, my time is pretty tight, and educating myself before making my Hugo vote isn’t my absolute top priority. As it is, I’m picking and choosing which works and which categories I am going to try to cover. Anything I can’t easily and comfortably access is absolutely not going to get read, and Captain Britain just lost me and my vote.

Written by Neil Gaiman, pencilled by Andy Kubert, and inked by Scott Williams.

Yep, another one from the Graphic Novels Hugo Packet!

This two-issue mini-series of Batman comics was commissioned to bring the iconic Detective Comics title to a close, and to provide a moment of closure before Batman was once again reinvented for a new audience of readers. Neil Gaiman, who also writes an introduction to this graphic novel, was pretty much given free rein to write whatever he wanted, and he produced what he felt was a story that provided a ‘The End’ for Batman.

The thing that makes characters like Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman so unique is that they don’t ever end – and yet there are countless deaths and alternate futures provided through comics such as the Elseworlds series or even more standard storylines, because when you have a character who lives on forever, ageless and constantly being reinvented, it’s fun to mess with the formula. There’s hardly a character in the DC Universe who hasn’t been killed and brought back, or lost their powers, or in some way been divested of the very elements that make up their character.

Writing ‘the End’ feels like an important thing to do, despite the fact that it has little weight or sense of permanence. The truth is, nothing in a comics universe has weight or permanence. There have been so many reboots, retcons, alternate worlds, dimension-crossings that it’s hard to tap into the kind of emotional resonance that a novelist or screenwriter can summon up by killing off a beloved character.

The beauty of Gaiman’s story is that it acknowledges all these things. It is a very meta story at its heart, that shows a deep love and respect for the long, complex and utterly incomprehensible Batman backstory. The premise is that Bruce (at least, we think it’s Bruce) is witnessing his own funeral – or, rather, that of the Batman. Mourners have gathered from both sides of the law – Batman’s allies and friends, and his worse enemies. One by one, they bear witness to how the Great Detective died.

Bruce has several mysteries to solve. Where is he? How is he able to observe his own funeral? Why does everyone have a different version of his death?

At its heart this is a very simple what if kind of story, but it has some moments of real brilliance. Alfred’s story was really extraordinary, and I loved the focus on the old school Selina Kyle’s Catwoman, a character who for me has never been better than she was in the old 60′s and 70′s comics.

The artwork too, deliberately evokes several different eras of Batman, and there are many lovely touches of nostalgia to balance out a mixture of sentimentality and sharp wit in the script. On the whole this is a very readable story, which anyone could pick up but I think would mean more to those who have traversed some of the many threads of Batman’s history. It’s the first so far from the packet which I have been genuinely tempted to pick up in hard copy, if only for archival reasons.

While I’m sure this makes for a pretty slender graphic novel, being only two issues, it is fleshed out with a whole bunch of value-add content, particularly several Batman universe stories previously written by Gaiman, to which he refers in his introduction. You can see here the progression of his interest in Batman as a concept, though he has never properly “done” Batman before. The best of these is a meta-story about Batman and the Joker hanging out together behind the scenes of the comic, which should be a one page joke and yet manages to be a far more substantial and poignant piece. I also was quite interested in the Poison Ivy origin story, though the Riddler one felt far less effective and well-realised.

So yes, Neil Gaiman can write Batman, and does so rather cleverly. Anyone surprised? I think my favourite ‘end of Batman’ story is still the arc from the animated series Batman Beyond & Justice League Unlimited, but the cleverness of this story makes it almost completely compatible with almost every other version of Batman’s possible future. That’s what is so very clever about it.

Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)

Another freebie from the Hugo Packet. Like Girl Genius, Fables is one of those things I’ve been meaning to get to for some time. It sounds on paper like it is exactly the sort of thing I love to read: a world that takes fairy tale images and iconography and does something new and inventive and meta with them.

Sadly, unlike Girl Genius, this one is not for me.

I was reasonably compelled by the first chapter of the selection which has been nominated for the Hugo – the character of Gepetto, a former evil dictator, and his reluctant attempts to fit in now that he’s just one of the people, did catch my attention. But after that first promising chapter, I mostly found myself bored.

Yes, I started reading quite far in, and yes the story isn’t meant to be read that way. But I should be able to tell from this volume whether it’s worth my time to go back and read Fables from the beginning, and from what I see here, it’s really not.

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This graphic novel is one of the freebies that was sent out with the Hugo packet to help those with voting rights become more informed about the shortlisted works. Can I just say, how awesome is reading comics in e-format? I need to digitise my JLA collection stat.

Girl Genius, written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio, is a webcomic available free, which also releases the stories in graphic novel format each year. I’ve been interested in this one for some time and gone so far as to bookmark the site, but have never got around to actually finding the time to check it out properly. This fantastical steampunk (or gaslamp fantasy) tale of “Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!” has been running for ten years and I knew going into it that starting at Vol. 9 was asking for trouble.

Sure enough, it was hard to get into at first. I liked the artwork, which is bright and gorgeous and features some beautifully human-shaped women (by no means a common event in any comic art). I liked the steampunk/gaslamp iconography, but for the first several pages it seemed like it mostly consisted of young people in corsets and tight trousers shouting at each other.

Gradually, though, Girl Genius got under my skin. The slow dripfeed of backstory and worldbuilding meant that by the time I was halfway through, I pretty much knew most of the relevant things that had happened so far, and what was at stake. I was also very attached to many of the characters, mildly invested in the romances, and starting to laugh at the in jokes.

Agatha and her friends are stuck in a sentient castle that may or may not want some of them dead. One of her love interests is dying in any case, from a mysterious and extremely colourful ailment, and the other is wandering around with an Agatha-imposter, flexing his muscles and generally getting into trouble. As promised on the tin, there is adventure and romance and mad science. The worldbuilding is beautiful, especially the concepts of the Sparks, and the way that magic, science and engineering intersect with each other. The characters are appealling and I particularly loved the scenes where the two boys were forced to work together, acknowledging that they both care for Agatha and, it seems, have a secret past of their own.

Agatha Heterodyne is definitely worth your time, especially if you have a thing for strong, talented female heroes, snark, steampunk, love triangles and people building shiny things in dark laboratories. It has a feel of a particularly smart manga to it, and you can read it without paying a cent. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Ooh, and you can buy the collections in pdf form. I’m so there!

I can tell the end of The Creature Court is on the horizon, because I’ve spent the day being hit in the head by other books. Important, exciting future books which are not yet. The trouble is, now I’ve answered the last questions about Book 3, my brain is telling me that the job is all done, which is patently not true.

Also both the books smacking me over the head today are the Wrong Books and in no way the one I planned to write next. For which I have sensibly been applying for grants, and planning to use to put a proposal together for Voyager in the second half of the year.

Damn it. Work’s not done. Work’s not done. Could someone inform my brain of this important fact? I don’t have time to construct a lavish Shakespearian alternate universe right this second.

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I was vaguely excited this week to discover that Felicia Day is writing a comic of The Guild! If you haven’t seen it, The Guild is a funny, whip-smart web TV series (three seasons and counting) about a group of online roleplayers.

Then I found out that issue #1 of the comic was available as an iPhone/iPad app, and my excitement went from vague to OMG in about 5 seconds flat. It cost about $1.20 Australian, and I downloaded it while waiting for my daughter to get ready for bed.

Anyone who loves the Guild will want to read this – the story follows Cyd through her life before the Game, and shows how and why she got into it. There are hints and cameos from the other characters, whom I’m sure we’ll see more of in future issues. The artwork is fresh and nice to look at, and the characters are recognisably the ones we know & love. It’s awesome. Go get it. Not sure what your options are if you don’t have the Apple app-ability, but apparently there’s a paper version out there, and if it’s popular enough I guess it will be collected as a graphic novel? It’s only a 3 issue mini series, apparently. I’ll be reading each issue as they come in… well, assuming they also get turned into apps.

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I requested this one – a graphic novel written by YA author Shannon Hale – for my birthday. I’m a big fan of stories which take fairy tales and worldbuild so that the often-illogical details of the original story suddenly make sense. Robin McKinley is the mistress of this genre, covering nearly all the most famous stories, but Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted and Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels (veeeery different books, don’t get them mixed up) are some good examples. Also, Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest and Wildwood Dancing, Jim C Hines’ The Stepsister Scheme, the movie Shrek…

And then there’s Castle Waiting, a glorious mashup of fairy tales made mundane, all in elegant pencils… ah, Castle Waiting, how much I covet a copy of thee…

But I digress. Hale & Hale’s Rapunzel’s Revenge is exactly in that tradition, creating a fantasy land of Wild West imagery and other Americana to present a very believable, logical version of Rapunzel. Only far more awesome.

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