20 in 2010 Book Challenge

At the beginning of the 2010, Heather and I started a challenge, to read at least 20 books each during the year. Even with all the stuff we have going on, both of us have always read a lot. We’re chain readers, if you will, knowing which book we’re going to read next before we’re finished with our current one. Bookmark goes out of one into the next.

Here are my results. Technically, I read 51 “books”. But to be fair, a lot of them were comic book or comic strip collections, which could be read really quickly. So I thought in the spirit of the challenge, only written, non-comic books should be counted. But in fairness to me, I thought I should get some credit for reading them, since they did take time after all. So I’m going with every 10 of those count as one book.

So, I read 18 “actual” books and 34 comic type books. Using my equation, that nets me just over 21 books. Success! Success!

Here is my list:

• Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre by Gorillaz (Great band, great art, great book)
• The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes (Pretty good)
• The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (A bit so slow at times)
• My Custom Van by Michael Ian Black (Sporadically funny)
• The Rocketeer, Cliff’s New York Adventure by Dave Stevens (Beautiful art)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Yes, I gave into the book that was everywhere. And I liked it.)
• L.A. Noir by John Butin (Very interesting read)
• Hellboy: The Ice Wolves by Mark Chadbourn (Hellboy novels are almost always good. This one was too.)
• Bob Flame: Rocky Mountain Ranger by Dorr Yeager (Bought this at the gift shop in Rocky Mountain National Park)
• No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (Movie follows the book almost exactly, the towards the end there are differences)
• Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke (Always incredible, I have the second book cued up)
• Too Fat To Fish by Artie Lange (Hilarious and sometimes sad)
• Hellboy: The All Seeing Eye by Mark Morris (Good)
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo and Bagram Ibatoulline (Children's novel)
• Kick-Ass by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. (Kick-ass)
• The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming (Not terrible, not great)
• The Dick Tracy Casebook edited by Max Allan Collins and Dick Locher (Great illustrations, hit and miss storylines)
• Dead@17 Afterbirth by Josh Howard (Always fun)
• The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler (Chandler entertains)
• Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsey (Love me some Dexter)
• Dead@17 The 13th Brother by Josh Howard (More Josh goodness)
• The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi (Pretty engrossing, look into it)
• The Clash by The Clash (I wish the Beastie Boys would do a book like this)
• Bone: Crown of Horns by Jeff Smith (My first time reading the Bone series, loved it)
• Red Rocket 7 by Mike Allred (Really enjoyed this and all the musical references through the years)
• Shes’ Crazy, He’s a Liar, Now What? by Cecily Knobler (This is a book I illustrated. I read most of the working manuscript as I was doing the art, but went back a read the entire thing. Very funny and shocking at times. Cecily, you've got some stories in you.
• FoxTrox: Houston We Have a Problem by Bill Amend (I was sad when FoxTrox went Sundays only, knowing these collections would stop)
• Scott Pilgrim 1-6 by Scott Lee O’Malley (Awesomeness)
• The Walking Dead Volumes 1-9 by Robert Kirkman (and various artists) (Awesomeness)
• Y: The Last Man by Brain K. Vaughan (and various artists) (Awesomeness)

As you can see, I was all over the place. I don’t know if I could pick my favorite from all of these. Walking Dead, Y and Scott Pilgrim are definitely standouts. My Custom Van was definitely the most disappointing. It was a fun ear of reading, I gotta say.

We're going to do it again in 2011. I already have two books going right now and about ten lined up. And for the record, the lovely Heather ended up reading 19 books. What a loser, right?