And I’m back from sleeping the most I’ve slept in years.
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I slept right through the postman ringing my bell yesterday, and so had to walk into to town and pick up Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Volume 1 from the post office. Hence, I found myself carrying an Amazon package around while I did some shopping.
For some reason Sainsburys seem to have instructed their till people to be chatty, which I don’t feel is something that works for the UK. I’d rather have a sullen youth begrudgingly ringing up my groceries, than an overly cheery chap trying to initiate small talk. Anyway, this particular chatty bastard was all “I bet I can guess what’s in there” and point-point at the Amazon package. And then I realised that you were going to be considered some kind of freak for buying a book that wasn’t Harry Potter on that particular day.
The book itself is awesome. I’d seen some folks complaining about the paper quality, and that had given be second thoughts about getting it. But then I saw the great Lew Stringer’s review of it on Amazon, and that put my mind to rest. If it was good enough for the creator of Combat Colin, it was going to be good enough for me, was the reasoning in my head.
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Talking of “chatty bastards” I see there is a new Pitman single out. 7″ only though. I think I slept through Leicester finest’s entire output post-“It takes a Nation of Tossers”, so coming I’m actually kind of excited to hear so new stuff.
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Blaster Knuckle is a fun little 3 volume manga that’s been scanlated by Chinkara. It’s similar in one or two ways to Berserk, but I’m not sure if there’s any element of copying involved as they seem to have come out around the same time. Here’s the description from the mangaupdates.com page:
Take yourself back to the 1880s where the KKK is thriving and the African American community lives in fear. The African Americans don’t fear the KKK simply because they beat, rape, and kill them. No. They fear the KKK because the KKK eats them. They are the aptly named man-eaters, a kind of mix between werewolves and vampires. They consume human flesh, can shapeshift into various forms, and are practically immortal. Only one man, an ex-heavyweight boxer named Victor Freeman, dares to stand up to them. Equipped with a small arsenal and a set of modified brass knuckles, can our hero defend his people and avenge his past?
After this short-lived series Wazarai Shizuya did Cestus, another sort-of-boxing manga, this time set in Nero’s Rome. It seems to have come out intermittently in Italy via Panini, though no sign of English translations anywhere.
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For Test Card Fans: