Comics! A couple of months' worth, in fact. Catching up is fun.

• Warren Ellis' Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth: so funny. Ages ago, Ellis posted a page or two of the script on his forum as a preview, and right then I wanted it. And it finally came out last week. Okay, the story isn't anything that you'll be writing essays about, but gosh it's funny. Did you see that episode of Batman: The Animated Series where some kids were telling stories about Batman, and that led to them describing different versions of the character? And there was a Dark Knight vignette with Michael Ironside as Batman, and it was So Cool and a friend called me at like 9 AM on a Saturday to wake me up so that I'd go watch it, and I was glad he'd done so? Remember that? Not the waking-me-up part, obviously, but the rest. Okay, well, if you do, this is a bit like that. If you don't, you should go see it, because of the comedy.

  Rrrrright. Anyway. The Planetary team is tracking down a guy who can, essentially, flip his environment into alternate realities. There is a why, but it's complicated, so skip it. The guy is in Gotham. So wackiness ensues when Batman turns up and is transformed from a fighter to Adam West to the Dark Knight to your classic Bob Kane version, etc. Jakita and Snow, as expected, have amusing reactions. That's really the whole thing. But it's so funny. And that's good enough for me.

• Ellis' Orbiter was a bit less satisfying overall. But still good, and pretty, and okay, the foreword about the Columbia just broke me. The characters are a little flat, but it's mostly about that "sense of wonder" that is, in the end, the point of SF. I do wish there'd been a little more besides that, but I think that Ellis was just trying to inspire that feeling... so I guess I end up with, it did what he wanted to do, and if I wanted something else, that's not a fault in the book.

  Plus,I have to endorse it just because it's so gorgeous. Giant props to DC. This is an OGN in hardcover, with a great-looking dustjacket, and embossed cover, and this sounds insane but even the endpapers are pretty.

• Steve Niles' 30 Days of Night is an OGN about vampires invading a small town in Alaska. You know: one of those places where the sun goes down for a month or so in the winter. I believe there are plans for a movie underway already, and it's a natural for that. It's a good, fun, blood-and-guts vampire story. Sort of Night of the Living Dead with vamps. And where night goes on a bit longer. It, too, is absolutely gorgeous (not hardcover, though, sadly). The art is by Ben Templesmith, and it's the reason I bought it. Sort of Dave McKean circa Arkham Asylum, if that gives you any idea.

• Alan Moore's Another Suburban Romance should not have been in black and white. The art is by Juan Jose Ryp, and it reminds me of Phil Winslade's work on Goddess in that it's overwhelmingly detailed. The problem is that in black and white, all those details really are just overwhelming; there's nothing to tell you where to focus, so it's just a panel full of tiny details and you have to stare at it for a while to distinguish buildings from trash from people. It's really a shame, because in color I think I'd actually appreciate the work more -- as it is I end up staring at a panel and waiting for it objects to suddenly pop into focus: "Oh! that's a soda can. Okay." The book consists of three shorts that are (according to the back cover) part of a play. And they're all more or less indescribable little set-pieces. But man, I wish it was in color.

• I finally caved in and checked out the first collection of Brian Bendis' Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl? It's yet another "See, there are superheroes, but we're treating them realistically" book. Which is fine. As usual, I'm sure I'm not getting all of the in-jokes, though. I mean, I assume they're in there. Because why do that if you're not making in-jokes? I liked the look, and the story was interesting, but it's not something that really grabbed me to the point that I must buy the other collections Right Now! It's more of a "That was fine, and I guess sometime when I can't find anything else to throw money away on, I'll try another collection."

• Caitlan Kirnan's Bast is yet another Sandman limited-run spin-off. I got the first issue. Er, a few months ago, so it's probably done now. It wasn't that engaging, and this seems like a small point, but I had no idea how old the main characters were supposed to be. I eventually decided they're supposed to be in high school. But between the art and the way they were written, at first I thought they were college-age, and that made their interactions seem really bizarre, so when I finally understood they were (I think) in their mid-teens, I had to go back and reread it. And I was still confused. As I said, it seems like a small thing, but it actually is a big part of characterization to have some sense of whether the characters are closer to 15 or 25, and the fact that I couldn't tell seems like a problem. And that seemed typical of the rest of it, too. I felt as if the writer was assuming I knew things I didn't about who these people were, and what they thought of each other. It wasn't terrible, and maybe these are problems I wouldn't have had if I read all three issues instead of just one, but on the other hand, it wasn't great enough to make me want to bother finding the other issues to try.

• As part of the big "Save Fantagraphics" campaign, I got all the old issues of Dork I'd missed, which means that now I am all caught up on The Eltingville Club. And now I kinda wish I'd saved the tape I made of the Cartoon Network's airing of the show. Silly, silly me.

Finally watched Ocean's Eleven today. I'd seen part of it a few weeks ago and this time I had nothing better to do than lounge on the couch and stare at George Clooney. Lordy, that man is pretty.

The movie is good fun. The weak link is, of course, Julia Roberts. I don't hate her, but I don't have any warm feelings for her, either. She's really a romantic comedy kind of gal, not that she's amazing at that, but in this she's chemistryless with everyone, and I certainly don't buy her as the motive for two hours of shenanigans. Shame about that. But she's actually not in it much, so if you just squint and pretend she's, I dunno, someone with charisma, you can probably get past it.

And the heist was complicated enough to be entertaining -- I could guess parts of the plan, but not all of it, which was perfect for providing a nice balance of "I knew it!" and "Oooooooooh, now I get it." Both of which are very satisfying sensations.

Plus, nearly everyone is pretty and dressed in beautiful clothes. I strongly approve of those things. I can't tell you how excited I am about the next Coen Brothers film, because it has George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and I think they're both impossibly gorgeous. The movie could be two hours of them staring at each other, and I'd be satisfied.

I also flipped past Moulin Rouge. I watched the first 45 minutes or so a while ago. At which point I got tired of trying to understand it. Since then, I've seen the very end, and probably another twenty minutes or so in the middle. I don't understand that movie. At all. I have no idea if it's bad or good. I just find it incomprehensible. It seems like they probably did a good job of doing whatever it is they were doing. So, yeah. I don't get it. I tried to get it. I feel like it's my fault that I don't get it. But I don't feel that interested in trying to get it, because it's probably just not my kind of movie. For me, it's like staring at abstract art; I don't feel qualified to judge it, because clearly I don't have the right context to understand it. And I'm not really intrigued enough to try all that hard, apparently.

I got The Hashish Man, by Lord Dunsany. It's a collection of short stories I found at my comic shop. I think my comic shop makes up for the piles of crappy toys at the front of the store with the piles of odd books at the back. I mean, why are they stocking Lord Dunsany's books? Anyway, I enjoyed the book. Some of the stories are Ambrose-Biercy: vignettes and ghosts and a dark, dry sense of humor. And some are just travelogues -- "Here we are, exploring a strange place. Yup. See, here's some strange stuff! Okay, moving on..." I didn't care so much for those, because atmosphere is all very nice, but there should be some plot eventually. But I'd say 75% of the stories were plenty fun. There's also a crazed introduction by someone who draws a parallel between one of the stories and Time Bandits. Which would be cool, if there was one, but he thinks that the ship in "A Story of Land and Sea" is just like the one in Time Bandits, and it totally isn't. At all. In any way. I think he hadn't seen the movie in a long time.

And I read The Getaway Man, by Andrew Vachss. (Another present! From Cindy, who might be TWoP's patron saint.) I liked it a lot. I was worried about it, because some of the reviews were mixed. But it's a Jim Thompson novel! I mean, it's a pulpy crime novel about good men doing bad things, and evil temptresses and sweet young things, and heists. It's not Great Fiction, but it wasn't meant to be.

Oh, and today I watched one of the DVDs of The Muppet Show. It was the set with Elton John, Julie Andrews, and Gene Kelly. Eh. It was okay, but the thing that sticks out in my mind was the extra featuring Kermit doing a "Lord of the Dance" parody. I have no idea, but I suspect these were earlier in the series, before they started parodying the songs they were doing as much. So the performances are just... performances, with Muppets. It's always possible I'm remembering it as being better than it was, but the moments that stand out in my memory usually involve them playing with the guest star's persona (like with Mark Hammil, or Alice Cooper, or Roger Moore). Maybe they didn't do that as much, and I only remember it because it was unusual, but I'm going to hold fast to the idea that they worked up to that.