KnopfThe City and Its Uncertain WallsThere’s a lot about Haruki Murakami’s latest novel that will sound familiar to readers of his work: an unusual world that exists in parallel to the real world; a strange, walled town where people are cut off from their shadows; unicorns; dream readers.When I first read the summary for without having any other context,I was like, “Is this , but different?” In some ways, it is.In , a man reminisces about a girl he fell in love with as a teenager, who once spun a story of a walled town where she claimed the her resides and disappeared.
He’s never really moved on from it.Then one day, he finds himself in the town.was Murakami’s first attempt to rewrite a novella he’d published years earlier.
But he now feels that “the timing was off, that it was too soon then to do a rewrite,” he recently told Some forty years later, he again returns to the concepts from that novella with .“As the years went by, I understood that I wanted to make it a calmer, quieter type of story,” he told .And here we are.
$25 at AmazonAbrams ComicArtsThe Art of Futurama: A Visual History of Matt Groening’s Cult Classic Animated SeriesAs a longtime fan, this one feels like a real treat.is a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the first seven seasons, with concept art, commentary and all that good stuff, which we’ve somehow never had compiled in a book until now.It opens with words from creator Matt Groening and showrunner David X.
Cohen, and there’s an episode guide within its pages to walk you through the full history.I absolutely love seeing things like early character designs and storyboards, so books like this are always a lot of fun, especially in a case like this, as marks its 25th anniversary this year.$27 at AmazonImage ComicsStandstill #1I just found out about halfway through its run, and all I can say is that it’s a wild ride.
Buckle up? opens with chaos — a man walks into a biker bar and it quickly becomes evident that he’s just there to stir the pot.And that seems to be the case pretty much everywhere he goes, each stop hinting at some grand revenge plan.Bloodbath after bloodbath ensues.
But the man, a sociopath named Ryker Ruel, has a handy little tool to get him out of any situation in a pinch: a device that can stop time.He moves through life asking the question, “If you could stop time, what you do?” Of course, the device is some top-secret project that he’s stolen, and the government really wants it back.When its creators catch wind that it’s gone missing, they get started on their own secret plan to make a second device to stop whoever took the first.
It’s a really fun thriller with some incredible art, and there are still four issues left to go before it all wraps up, so now is a good time to jump in.It debuted at the end of the summer, and issue #4 was released this week.$3 at AmazonQuick OverviewThe City and Its Uncertain Walls$25 at AmazonThe Art of Futurama: A Visual History of Matt Groening’s Cult Classic Animated Series$27 at AmazonStandstill #1$3 at Amazon