The Killing Joke - Alan Moore & Brian Bolland

Loved it. The Joker's origin story took me by surprise and worked very well as a window into his psyche without making him any less enigmatic or terrifying. Also loved the bit at the end where he acknowledges (in an obscure way) that what he's doing is wrong and for a moment shows regret, and then he makes a joke and Batman laughs at it. For a few panels they are brought together, not reconciled but not in conflict either. It's a gen of a book, short and sharp and confidently crafted.

Hero - Wing Shing Ma

Graphic novel adaptation of one of my favourite films. Very well executed and, for a fan of the film, nice to own. I certainly wouldn't recommend reading it instead of seeing the film though. It seems a little empty with the beautiful fight scenes rendered as a handful of still images, although the art is good. I seriously wonder how much point there is in adapting things to comic form. There seems to be a craze for it at the moment and I just don't think it necessarily adds much. But yes, as a person who doesn't foresee ever reaching the point of having seen the film Hero "enough times", this is a very lovely book to have on my shelf.

Phonogram: Rue Brittania - Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

A very good, very clever comic written by the type of person you would want to punch if you knew them in person. This is made clear in the glossary of Britpop at the back, which is almost as informative an interesting as it is arrogant and condescending, but not quite. Ok, Britpop was never my thing, especially viewed as something set up in opposition to the soul-shaking musical phenomenon of grunge, and of course it irks me to see Radiohead dismissed as "experimental rock for people who don't listen to experimental rock" so yeah, I'm biased on the music front. As a comic it's just the right length to let its brilliant premise sustain it (magic powered by music, mages who centre their personalities on and thus draw power from musical scenes) so I can't slag it off even though I really want to.

Locke and Key vol. 4 - Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez

Still excellent. Still not hufely keen on this style of art but I can see that it's done well, with lots of details and highly expressive faces. The story is moving forward too, and reading this one made me retrospectively realise that vol. 3 was mostly padding. It's a common thing in TV and comics that try and tell a definite story in an indefinite episodic format. Once you've noticed it you can't unnotice it and not many things are more off-putting in a work of fiction. But this is one story that seems to be back on track.

Dark Rain - Mat Johnson & Simon Gane

Another excellent graphic novel. This is the story of a bank heist during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It's a good story well-told, and well drawn too, in (mostly) black and white, with lots of detail but without ever becoming cluttered or hard to take in (even when depicting the detritus and chaos). I like the way it keeps musings, mourning and tributes and all the other things you'd expect in a story about this incident, to a minimum. It's there but it's never allowed to get in the way of the story. It remains a story.

A Taste of Chlorine - Bastien Vives

A very simple but very engaging story with beautiful, beautiful artwork. Very little dialogue. There are whole scenes without dialogue and sections of 10 or 20 pages without any text, so you're just looking at the pictures and taking in what's happening. There's a bit of an art to this. The ending is rather mysterious. I'm not sure if I'm missing something or not, which is slightly frustrating. Anyway, this is a very good example of simple, minimalist, stripped down visual storytelling.