Have just received the French version of Last Sane Cowboy and Other Stories and it's excellent. If you're in Europe, it's 22 Euros from Actes Sud.

Which reminds me; here's a pic of a selection of a few of our international versions joining Last Sane Cowboy:



From left: Ursula, 10 Euros from Lain Books, Badlands, from Devir, the Italian Demo, from Double Shot, the two-volume German Demo from eidalon Verlag, and a French version of Electric Girl from Albin Michel. Rule the planet!

Tim Janson's take on Holmes over at Comic Addiction: "AiT/Planet Lar never fails to deliver comics that are offbeat and thoroughly enjoyable. Their latest is Holmes, a 104-page trade paperback featuring the adventures of the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. This Holmes and Watson isn’t exactly what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was thinking about when he created the duo back in the late 1800s. Omaha Perez deconstructs Holmes into a drug-using, ego-maniacal manic depressive and that’s just scratching the surface of this often hilarious farce... Perez’ art is a perfect blend of abstract, gaslight-era cartooning rendered in glorious black & white. He’s especially adept at facial expressions, which are able to convey strong emotions without the need for word balloons. That said, the dialog is witty and succinct and the interplay between Holmes and Watson drives the story. We see Watson as the one who continually has to pull his friend out of one bad situation after another even as Holmes takes all the credit. Holmes is very different but a pure delight. Droll comedy often mixed with Benny Hill-like shenanigans. This is the kind of book that AIT does so very well."

+++++

...and... another Thursday, another I Gots Me Some Enthusiasm. This week is dedicated to my father-in-law, who tipped me off to the art-and-history book I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me, because he knows of my embroidered insignia fetish. Worth clicking through if you want a little something different.

Let me catch you up:

Augie De Blieck, Jr. digs on Holmes: "It is not a terribly respectful and authoritative take on the character. It is, however, wicked good fun with a dark sense of humor." AiT in a nutshell, Augie; AiT in a nutshell.

+++++

I never know where to link to Bill Sherman's reviews, as they show up on Blogcritics as well as his personal blog Pop Culture Gadabout, so this week I'll do both. I guess if you want to go straight to the review, hit the first one, and if you want to read about the Ramones and Suburban Shootout, scroll around the latter. "Perez's art runs the range from finely detailed, especially in the long shots of Victorian era London, to rushed, yet oddly seems appropriate to this broadly dark parody. Too fine an art style would work against his story's calculated moments of crassness (it's the same principle that allows the South Parkers to get away with any number of grotesque outrages). His covers/chapter headings are deceptively well wrought, though: labor intensive scratchboard pieces that are only replicated during the opium den hallucination sequence."

+++++

It was Mimi's birthday since I saw you last; very nice of Paramount to schedule the triumphant return of the world's most awesome archaeologist on the missus' birthday. A personal thanks from me for the nuclear refrigerator scene.

+++++

Jim and Lee on Dugout: "Lee: AIT always seems to find interesting things to publish. I remember Bello’s art from Hench and I liked that so I’m thinking this is worth trying. Jim: The premise sounds great and it sounds like it would make a great TV movie."

+++++

Adrienne Rappaport and Walker and I wait for Jim Cox to cross the Bay to Breakers finish line. Jim does it faster every year... to put this into perspective for you, in the time it takes for Adrienne to drop him off, drive across town to our house and park, the four of us to mosey down to Java Beach and have a quick nosh and then stroll over to the finish line... never has us waiting more than ten minutes for Jim to have run the seven and a half miles across the city.

And, honestly, he'd probably do it a bit quicker if he wasn't dodging naked guys and Drunk Elvis and all the Spidermans and the 501st Golden Gate Garrison.