• If there’s a new English translation of a Haruki Murakami novel coming out, chances are it’s already on my read it ASAP list. After reading this perspective piece by Yuka Igarashi at Granta today, I think the priority level for 1Q84 has been upped. The reworked and recycled motifs of Murakami’s writing are a big part of what keeps me coming back to him. Terror and religion are two topics I’ve wanted to see him explore more deeply, so I’m really looking forward to diving into this book sometime in the near future.
• I’ve been wrestling with Craig Thompson’s Habibi since I read it a few weeks ago, and Robyn Creswell obviously did in her New York Times review as well. I agree with G. Willow Wilson that the review discounted Thompson’s art to a huge degree, but I also share Creswell’s frustrations with the neo-Orientalist style and tone. For me, the underlying question at the end of the book was much the same as hers in regard to whose fantasies were being expressed and how to parse them.
• As far as I’m concerned as a reader, the announcement that there’s more of Geof Darrow’s Shaolin Cowboy on the horizon from Dark Horse was the finest news to emerge from the New York Comic Con weekend.
• If you’re a Wolverine follower and Sabretooth fan, you may have found the news that Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi are bringing him back to be a bigger deal.
• Oh, and then there was that new phone from Apple that came out. The premise of Siri is definitely something I can get behind, but when it comes to my capacity for skepticism, halfway decent voice recognition software rivals UFOs and Bigfoot. Nevertheless, this guy got Siri to run on an iPhone 4, which was fascinating.