Hearts and Minds- NCCW

As always I encourage everyone to post comic book content on Wednesdays.

I was able to pick up the hardcover trade of G.I. Joe: Hearts and Minds when Borders was in their final throws for about $3 after tax.  Yes true believers, for the price of a single issue, I got the hardcover trade.  As of writing Amazon has an edition for $10.

This book was penned by Max Brooks.  Yes, that Max Brooks.  It covers different members of Cobra and Joe singularly.  I think each issue of the comic was split in two and covered two characters.  It goes into the character's motivations or back stories that leads to them being either Joe or Cobra.

I thought it was a pretty good book.  It is very light on dialogue and really narrative in general.  Brooks put a lot of faith in his artist to convey what he wanted and I think it worked.  It looks into why a person would become a terrorist, what drives them.  You aren't going to see Duke or Cobra Commander.  This book takes a look at some of the characters that you wouldn't get to know otherwise.  One of the stories is even dedicated to random faceless Cobra troopers.

If you like G.I. Joe, you should enjoy this book, but I don't think it is a prerequisite.  You could go into this book just knowing that Cobra is a terrorist organization and Joe is an elite group of the military and fare pretty well.  It is appropriate for anyone that can actually read it.  Give it a shot.  

Gimmick Books

In the recent past there have been more than a few gimmick books come out. They are perpetually coming out, really, but the ones I am refering to are the horror gimmick books.

I guess it all started with The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. This excellent book was both funny and launched a zombie craze in literature. This was soon followed by the very novel (pardon the pun) idea of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Not saying that P&P&Z is a great book, only that the idea was very clever.

Now, it seems, every book ever written is bein given the treatment. I hear they are going to rewrite I Am Legend and put more Vampires in it. Then call it I Am Legend and Vampires. It is kind of rediculous and I imagine some of these books are selling quite well, but they are just a novelty.