(no subject)

[meganbmoore]

 rightstuf.com's current sale is 33% of CMX comics, 40% off if you're in their club thingie.  I highly approve of this, as I've been waiting for that and a Go!Comi sale (which I don't think they'll ever have...another few weeks and i'll have to concede defeat and pay a bit more for a few things at Amazon...)

Has anyone read The Empty Empire, From Eroica With Love (I'm positive someone recced it to me...smillaraaq?) Key to the Kingdom, or Musashi Number Nine?

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am a raving Eroica fangirl (dating back to before there were even official English publications), so you've probably heard me nattering on and on about it.

It is pure cracktastic camp of a high order, and while the BL elements are so blatant they aren't really subtext but text, there is no real angst or action: it's much more about playing the endless unrequited pursuit for laughs, and making fun of what were already becoming established tropes by the mid-to-late-70s, so I think it's perfectly readable even for a non-yaoi fangirl.

On the downside: the art is very, very dated. If you have trouble with 70s-shojo stylization where everybody has legs ten miles long and flowing hair and random decorative flowers everywhere, that will probably bug you. (It does get somewhat less florid and slightly more realistic after Aoike-sensei's hiatus, although a lot of longtime fans aren't totally enthralled with the art change.)

Also, the first volume is particularly weak -- it starts out focusing on a trio of plucky superpowered teens who are utterly uninteresting, and some Lupin III-ish hijinks involving a bumbling Japanese police inspector; it doesn't start to pick up steam until Dorian and his recurring foil, Iron Klaus, arrive on the scene. Fortunately, the teens are gone for good by the second book, and I think the police inspector fades from view around much the same time.

I would suggest giving it at least until Volume 3 to make a fair judgement of it -- by #3 it's pretty much hit the espionage-and-crime-caper-with-rampant-innuendo mode that it will stick to throughout the rest of its run, and if you're still bouncing off by the time you get to Insh'allah and Hallelujah Express, it's probably not for you.

foolsandmadmen has the decades-old low-rez scanlations of the earlier volumes that pretty much kept the English fandom going for years, and thepinkpanzer is doing really nice scanlations of the newer stuff. You'll need to join the comms to get to the downloads.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'm less thrown by less-great art than some are. I think it's years of conditioning from comic books when you suddenly have good art replaced with a bad guest artist.

BTW, (on acompletely unrelated note) I haven't had a chance to go through the website for the bracelet(I haven't been on the internet computer full time at work in a while, and it's one of many websites that loads slowly on this computer) but the silver color, normal length chain and the purple and blue stones are best.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I can mail you some hardcopy catalogs if you like, to get a better idea of what sort of stuff is available...

(And if medium-toned purples are good, shopping online with a different vendor for another one of my custom pieces, I actually turned up someone who's got really good prices on faceted amethyst briolettes...they're a little irregular in shape and size, but I rather like that effect to make it clear that these are hand-cut stones, and to give a little more variety to a piece that's going to have all the dangles be of much the same type...)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking I'll have time at work on Saturday. Irregular shapes sound interesting, though.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

D'oh, and it looks like I forgot to put them on watch...but these look pretty much like the ones I saw on auction earlier:



And here's a different interesting-looking string I found when trying to find the first one:

http://images.marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/fullView.asp?id=244019341&fc=0&img=http://fareastlines.com/ebay/images/gemstones/am00022l1.jpg (http://images.marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/fullView.asp?id=244019341&fc=0&img=http://fareastlines.com/ebay/images/gemstones/am00022l1.jpg)

The second batch is a bit more regular in shape but more irregular in color -- they're darker purple and interestingly cloudy and variegated. The first string is lighter and a bit closer to gem grade in clarity, but more irregular in shape and size; either set would make for a very interesting charm bracelet, IMO.

(You can find stuff that's pretty much gem quality in terms of color and clarity and consistency of cut, but those beads run a lot more expensive, natch. These, with the inclusions or irregularity of cut, are actually pretty much price-comparable to some of the fanciest man-made glass or lead crystal beads.) (http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/42000103/Images/10/SPAM-23.jpg)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I really like the second set, actually.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

*nods* I quite like them both; my only potential concern with the second set is they're a little bigger and chunkier than the lighter teardrops, so they *might* need a slightly heavier (and thus more expensive) bracelet base for balance. (Or maybe not -- that's one of those nebulous things where I can look at measurements up and down, but I really need the actual pieces in my hands to make a proper judgement call on the final design.)