Naoki Urasawa - 20th Century Boys Volume 19

I wonder who else is still reading this series. I still like it a lot. It's good now you can tell it's finally reaching the end so the excitement level has gone up again. The twists feel like they will be the last twists now, and that they might actually be the truth of what happened. There's only two or so more books left in the series, though I just found out there might be a couple of 21st Century Boys books after that...
I am looking forward to the last one then I can re-read the whole thing all the way through next time I'm feeling rough and hungover and just want to spend the whole day reading in bed.

Lots Of Lat - Lat in London

Here's the first four pages of Lat's story 'To London' from 'Lots of Lat'.

Lynda Barry - What It Is

Lynda Barry's 'What it is' is a very nice book. Its all full colour and full of collage and cartoons. It is the essence of her creative writing course she has been teaching, and all her ways of keeping writing when worrying about what she is doing. I've been after this for ages, I think it would be a great book to read if you were suffering from the dreaded writer's block, like I was in the summer. There are some great games to play to get yourself writing that Lynda has found very useful. The best one seems to have one page in front of you to write the story on and another page to draw spirals, doodles, eyes and stuff to keep yourself going. She wants to always keep the pen moving so you don't come to a stop and don't try to work out if your writing is good or bad, it's just writing. I think all the rules of writing will also apply to cartooning, no problems. Also there are loads of questions, what is an image, what is a memory. There aren't really any answers, just questions to make you think and get you going. A lot of it is like beautiful poetry, with all the random words and collage on each page. Highly recommended.

Lauren Weinstein - Goddess of War Volume 1

The Goddess of War is very good. Lauren Weinstein did those 'Inside Vineyland' comics, which I have never read but often saw in the Comics Journal and now she's started this awesome series. It's about an ex valkyrie who has been made the Goddess Of War by the mysterious no. 2. Her job is to spread war throughout the human world, in this issue she is meant to go meet a suicide bomber and inspire him to blow himself up. She has a bad day and feeling lonely and depressed pulls a sickie. She thinks about the time she fell for a mortal, Cochise the Apache, and tells his story. The drawing is very good, looks like scratchy old printing or something, its very interesting. Also there are lots of great pencil or charcoal splash type pages of the Goddesses Trophy Room, and other important places in the story. It's very funny too. Well worth getting, I'm looking forward to part 2 to see where this story is going...