Still hiatusing

I should really go on hiatus more often. I’m still not fully back since Bluesfest is still going on. However, I just wanted to say that someone got a library card and is really enthusiastic about it!

Recently a lot of people in my life were talking about how great the public library system was in Ottawa. You could rent movies and request stuff from any of the amalgamated city libraries online and even renew your books online. What really made me curious was one friend who showed me the Zombie survival guide he got from the library. So I checked it out online and said to myself “Self, if they have Swamp Thing you’re going to get a library card.” They had Swamp Thing, although not the Alan Moore stuff which I wanted but I wasn’t specific so I went anyway.

Well I requested a bunch of stuff online but the real treasure was seeing their actual “Graphic Novel” section at the branch I can easily get to at lunch. The English selection was sparse but the rest of it was absolutely jammed full of Bandes Designes. I didn’t pick up any BD because I don’t have the energy to dedicate to reading with a French-English dictionary. Yes, even though I know French I haven’t exactly used it a lot in the last decade or so. So I’m a bit rusty. Still, this looks to be a great way to spend the winter months – cozy up to some Marshal Blueberry and hundreds of books I’ve not seen since my visit to France.

I did manage to pick up some English books. I took home WE3 and a bunch of Rick Geary’s Treasury of Victorian Murder series. I managed to read WE3 and two of the Geary books. I don’t know what to say at this moment but something will come of it shortly perhaps. I liked a lot of the ideas in WE3 and the relatively compressed story but I wasn’t completely enthralled or captivated. I appreciated it but I didn’t love it.

I also read the Treasury of Victorian Murder and The Fatal Bullet about the assassination of President Garfield. Sitting at home now are The Borden Tragedy and The Beast of Chicago both by Geary in the VicMur style. Again, I don’t have much to say about them right now except his style reminds me a lot of my friend Brian’s.