Aya Back, Bigger & Better Than Before

Via Bleeding Cool comes the welcome news that Aya, the wonderful series published in the U.S. by Drawn & Quarterly, will be getting the omnibus treatment, plus a sequel.  First in July comes Aya: Life in Yop City, which reprints the first three books at a fraction of the cost (the original books were $20 apiece while this is $25 for the three together).  Then in October Aya: Love in Yop City will be released, which collects the fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the series, previously unavailable in the U.S.

Alison Bechdel's “Are You My Mother?” Previewed in The New Yorker

The April 23, 2012 issue of The New Yorker has a profile of Alison Bechdel, whose latest book Are You My Mother? comes out next month.  In the iPad version of the issue, the article is accompanied by a seventeen-page excerpt of the upcoming graphic novel as well.  It's a great read -- the short sample touches on a wide variety of meaty topics (dreams, memory, memoirs, parents) in a short space -- and leaves me anxious to read the whole work.   I especially enjoyed the way Bechdel weaves the details of her and her parents' lives to accentuate the parallels and patterns that keep popping up.  I know I've been noticing this a lot lately in my life so it really resonated with me.

Anyway, here's a sample page from the excerpt.  If you have the iPad version of The New Yorker I highly encourage you to check this out.

Comic Book Cash, Round Two: Technical Glitches

An update on Marvel's second run at their Comic Book Cash program: The coupon code was supposed to be mailed out Sunday, April 1st but apparently there were technical problems so I didn't receive my email until Wednesday, April 4th.  This isn't an issue for me since I'm in no rush to redeem the code (you have until 4/24 to input the code and until 5/1 to use the printed-out coupon) but it must be a bit embarrassing for Marvel that the coupon went out after the AvX parties they were hoping to promote during the code entering process:

One nice thing about this round is that, unlike last time where you were limited to three shops to choose from, this time you have a list of twenty shops to sift through.  Of course, some of the shops aren't real options for me as I'm not about to drive 100 miles to a shop in Wisconsin to see what Marvel comics they have on the shelves, but it's still nice that they expanded the selection.

"Stop yelling at me! I'll enter the code in a second!!"

Here is the FAQ for this iteration of the program.