The reviews are in

We saw this film the other night:
It's a very sweet movie about how a shy man breaks out of his shell and finds love. It really is a perfectly sweet film with good performances all around, especially Gosling's. I really related to the lead character and his shyness. I wasn't as bad off as he is in this film but I used to be pretty darn shy around women, so I know where he was coming from. Even though you can see things coming a mile away in the movie, they telegraph stuff like crazy, it's still a good film. I recommend it.

My friend Keith got me a signed copy of this graphic novel:
It's called Afrodisiac and it's a send of blaxploitation films from the early '70's, except it's in comic book form. And it not only parodies blaxploitation films, it also parodies comic books and comic book styles of art and writing as well. Having grown up with comic books and blaxploitation films, this graphic novel is a hoot. It's laugh out loud funny and it's right on the money with it's send ups of and inside jokes and references to pop culture. This one is highly recommended.

I read most of this recently:
It's a series written by an Italian writer about a private detective who specializes in cases dealing with the paranormal. The stories are very intricate and well plotted but for me the best thing about this series and character is the art. It's all in black and white and it's highly reminiscent of some of the best art that used to grace the pages of Heavy Metal magazine in the late '70's, which makes sense because most of the art in those old issues of Heavy Metal was done by European artists. The art is spare at times, but it always furthers the story and all the stories are chock full of stellar wordless panels that say so much without any dialogue.

I recommend this one as well. And it's available at my local library.