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Ranking Die Kitty Die
For fans of Arhie comics, Ruiz and Parent put their considerable talent into their personal Kickstarter project Die Kitty Die! This Cheryl-look alike is Kitty Ravencroft, a witch whose adventures have dominated comics for decades. But it seems she has lost her charms and her creator has decided on a great publicity stunt to regain interest. Kill Kitty off, in real life and in the book! Now Kitty’s five ex-husbands, and old friends are vying for the chance to kill her and get their own comic line. Kitty’s own evil cousin, Katty wants to be the reboot Kitty. What’s a witch to do?
This is an R-rated, hilariously inappropriate and maybe problematic adventure for some. But I don’t offend easily, I thought it was a riot as the duo gently ribbed the comic industry while putting as many innuendos and pin ups as possible. Now there’s four volumes but since I can’t find Starstruck anywhere online or in stores, I can only rank the first three.
- Hollywood or Bust: Kitty was able to survive all the attempts on her life which is good because the mercenary saga has boosted comic sales and now she’s going to be in the movies! Kitty plans to be entirely in charge of her image but seems like someone doesn’t want Kitty to be in charge and tries to bump her off with the Hexecutioner! Maybe because this is the first one I read but it gets top spot with its balanced story, introduction of Kitty’s old friends, clever tv and Hollywood references and of course =, the lovable rascal Maxi Millions (totally not a ripoff of R.R. at all).
- Heaven and Hell: Since the last volume ended in a cliffhanger, we are all left with one question: Who shot K.R? Kitty wants to know too but first must stand trial as to whether she’s to go to heaven or hell. This was an excellent volume between Kitty’s friends on Earth engaging in Scooby Doo hijinks to find Kitty’s killer while Kitty teams up with Li’l Satan an meets God aka Bea Arthur (made in his image, of course!). I loved it, just hysterical. Plus they cleverly reference a certain old comic ad to create their version of a Satanic king. The only reason it gets bumped to second is because of a dropped storyline where the Grimm Reaper and Derek team up to find Kitty’s killer and get dropped entirely.
- Die Kitty Die: Ah the first one always has the hardest responsibility of introducing everyone, and balancing the timeline, plot urgency and stakes. Of course, this was a more comical take because comic and it’s clear they were having fun in going all out on the pervy selves but some of the storyline just felt rushed in the last two issues.
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Book Highlight: The Missing Sword
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The Grace Kelly Dress Review
Weddings are supposed to be one of the biggest days of your life and the wedding dress is the centerpiece. But for this family, the Grace Kelly dress insired by the Grace Kelly wedding dress holds differing meanings and expectations for each women on their special day.
Janowitz takes us through an intergenerational story spanning 2020, 1982 and 1958 with Rocky, Joanie, and Rose.
In 2020, Rocky dreads wearing the wedding dress. She’s a tech girl, opting for the new rather than the old and the dress just isn’t her. It’s perfect for her beautiful, girly sister, Amanda whom her mother was always closer to. But she’s the one getting married and she can’t spit out the words that she doesn’t want the dress. She doesn’t want to hurt her mother.
In 1982, Joanie is eager to get married and start her adult life. She thinks. Thing is, she’s more eager about wearing the Grace Kelly dress down the aisle than the husband greeting her at the end of it. When she finds out that her elder sister did not unexpectedly die of a heart attack, her mission to find out the truth leads to a crisis of identity, and fears of disappointing her mother after she spent all the time being the good girl for two.
In 1958, the orphaned Rose loves her job as a semestress for the famously talented Madam Michele but when her employer unexpectedly dies, she’s recruited to be her protege and complete the wedding dresses in Madam’s name. But her ruse may be discovered as she befriends the eager bride and falls in love with the bride’s brother, Robert.
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The Liz Taylor Ring Review
Jewelry has a way of making a girl shine brighter, feel prettier, sexier, like sparkly armour so they can walk into the room with their head held high. For some, jewelry can have immense meaning imbued into it, remembering who gave it to you and why, all the special events it represents.
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The Audrey Hepburn Estate Review
After years away, Emma is returning to her home, Rolling Hills aka the Aubrey Hepburn Estate due to local legend that Sabrina was filmed on the premise. Untrue. Also untrue is that Emma lived in the main house, she lived above the garage since her mother was the maid. It’s all in the technacalities and though others repeatedly tell Emma that Rolling Hills wasn’t really her home. Her family didn’t own it. It was part of her, lots of first occurred there, her father’s memory is there and her history with two beloved men began there.
One of those men, Leo, the son of the chauffuer is now successful and is tearing Rolling Hills down despite Emma’s protests. The other is Henry, the son of the original owners who had a clandestine relationship with her yet cruelly bowed to pressure and took the most popular girl to prom instead, and the destruction of Rolling Hills brings them together once more to air out grievences and find out lost family secrets.
Yeah, this book surprised me mainly because I thought it would be thoughtful finding oneself alongside Hollywood glamour. Which there was Emma finding herself but it has also the secret mystery of Nazi connections! What a twist!
I knew about Aubrey’s experiences of nearly starving during WW2, but I had no idea about her parents’ ties to facism and the Nazis nor Aubrey being part of the Dutch Resistance. So that was fascinating stuff alongside Janowitz’ elegance in weaving parts of Aubrey’s history into Emma’s story (abandonment from a deceased father, struggle to reconcile her history and the victims of WW2) with allusions to Hepburn’s famous films throughout. It just made me want to watch her movies again especially as the romance plot was largely inspired by Sabrina which was Emma’s favorite movie in the novel.
And the story is so much more than the love triangle although it takes up a bulk of the flashbacks, it grows alongside the character development and mysteries taking place inside Rolling Hills. It sets the scene for the jealousy between Henry and Leo which Emma can’t navigate because she’s hung up in her childhood imaginings of her and Henry, prince and princess, and finally being more than the maid’s daughter. Yet she and Leo have plenty of easy chemistry throughout their adolescence as they try to uncover whether Henry’s father is really a Nazi thanks to the memorabilia they found in a hidden kitchen chamber.
Here, we see two flawed choices. Henry’s flawed in the past and Leo is flawed in the present and Emma is mixed up in this as she can’t set her boundaries because she’s so mixed up even as she doesn’t realize it. Honestly, I thought Janowitz was going to end with Emma single even though the choice was obvious from the beginning. But it just shows how Emma’s personal growth was a priority and her need to work on herself before commitment.
Which brings to what does home and family represent. It’s something Emma had been chasing most of her life since her father’s death and her mother’s distant relationship. Emma put all that meaning into Rolling Hills but she soon finds that it really comes from the people you surround yourself with and the life you’ve created which compared to the nostalgia of the past, the present wins out every time.
It was a good journey though I felt it was a bit rushed in the end as Emma comes to accept her past through a time-skip so we don’t see how she has become so assured when a few chapters ago she was dithering whether she was a good person or not. I also some questions about the timeline as it is implied that this is the present day but all their parents were teenagers during WW2 so I’d feel they’d be a lot older than they were in the story. But then I’m not very good with math so I could be wrong.
This was a wonderful book with mystery, history, romance and old Hollywood charm as Janowitz put so much care and research into this. 5 stars.
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Ranking Commercial Breaks
You may think commercials are those nuisances interrupting your favorite shows but for these girls, being famous for thirty seconds is a big deal. Commercial acting is its own world with its own terms, protocols and competition that Kain makes as exciting as any Hollywood set.
- Picture Perfect/Dramatic Pause: Normally I would put two in the top spot, especially in a trilogy but this is such a close tie that I truly cannot decide. In Picture Perfect, Cassie Harold loves commercials for its pristine, perfect life so unlike her mom who is her complete opposite and her father’s long distance work. In commercials everyone is happy and perfect and for those thirty seconds, she can be perfect too. In the course of the book, Cassie’s attempts to mold her real life to commercial life fails miserably especially as she reels from the news of her parent’s divorce. Kaine does an excellent job in showcasing Cassie’s numbness and denial over her changing life. Unlike other divorced kids, she doesn’t blame herself but wonders why her parents can’t remember what brought them together in the first place. You can understand how commercialism is her escape in a life where she feels pretty dumb and average but it makes it more triumphant when she starts to see how reality can be more affirming even if it isn’t perfect. Also it’s unique in that there’s no love interest, sure there’s a guy who has a crush on her and she learns to befriend him beyond his nerdish appearences but he’s like three years younger than so it would have been weird if it went in that direction. The only flaw is that Kain get repetitive in bringing the point home and some lines seemed to repeat or at least be a variation of the same. Dramatic Pause features Isabel Flores who yearns to be a serious actor in Broadway and she has the prodigy chops to back it up when she gets accepted to an acclaimed academy on scholarship. But it’s expensive, so she desperately accepts a ridiculous Japanese commercial job. Since it is supposed to only air in Asia, she is assured that her humiliation will never reach her serious actor crush, but then it comes to the U.S. Isabel’s struggle to reconcile the two highlights the snobbishness of the industry but it’s nice to see her learn as she befriends her fellow commercial actors and understands that one can be both. Her acting cred won’t tank because she appears as a dancing banana but just shows her versatility, one can be both. However, it’s one flaw is that Kain is just not great at burgeoning romances. I didn’t buy why Chuck would be still into Isabel after she acted like a snob to him and they only talked thrice.
- Famous for Thirty Seconds: Brittany Rush is a big deal. She booked the most commercials in the industry ever since she was 8-months, but one year off the grid because her stupid family had to move to Hong Kong she finds her position as it-girl has been usurped. Honestly, Brittany is unlikable throughout the book. Her career is more important to her than anything else, so much that she barely knows how to interact with people her own age or fathom niceness without ulterior motives. Most of the book has her planning to sabotoge her really nice rival, Phoebe who genuinely believes they are friends by dating Phoebe’s brother aka her good luck charm. On one hand, Kain does a good job in pinpointing why Brittany is this way. How she has spent so much of her life on screen that she doesn’t have much idea of who she is on her own. That she confuses being viewed through screen as being seen. But I found her chemistry with Liam, the guy she ends up falling for despite her initial plan to dump him to ruin Phoebe’s mojo to be predictable and just cartoonishly self-involved for most of it. However, it did introduce me to the series and does an excellent job in illustrating the commercial industry, its lingo, process and such.
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Howl’s Moving Castle
After reading Howl’s Moving Castle last month, I finally got around to watching the Ghibli movie. Of course, it’s not totally accurate but damn that studio is amazing in creating such a beautiful world that is inspiring and magical and whimsical. I mean that opening scene where Howl suavely steps up to those guards bothering Sophie and flies her over the buildings was just full of wonderment. I literally gasped at the same time as Sophie.
The beginning is pretty accurate minus the Howl floating Sophie scene but I enjoyed it as it added a great meet cute moment I suppose whereas in the book Sophie’s romantic feelings towards Howl feel so muted that I thought she was more of a mom than a romantic interest to him.
But after Sophie meets the turnip scarecrow and gets Howl’s castle, the moving rushes through the story and changes it up focusing on the war the king has wrought on the waste to find his son and the terrible effects of it on the rest of town. Makes sense as that is Miyazaki’s calling card. Creating beautiful moments of natural solitude with the horrors of war so the triumph of peace at the end will be so much sweeter.
Not that it completely cuts out the book. It adds some of the most memorable moments like Sophie meeting Howl’s mentor, Sulliman, and Howl’s breakdown over his dyed hair. The latter was very effective in depicting the slimy ooze Howl emits during his temper tantrum. In the book it was a funny mess, but the movie made it eerie yet amusing.
Howl in the movie is much more sophiscated and put together. Honestly the dyed hair temper tantrum was the only time he reminded me of the book as Jones depicts him as an flirtatious, flighty, dramatic wizard full of bravado to cover his cowardice. The movie adds some more poignancy (no, it doesn’t include Howl’s family) by having Howl be somewhat cursed by his lack of heart. The scene where he transforms into a nightmarish bird that Sophie tries to comfort gave me major Beauty and the Beast vibes.
Sophie is a bit more emotional than her no-nonsense, crochety grandmother self. That still forms a majority of her personality, but she is more likely to tear up as her feelings for Howl are more prominant and a major focus of their deepening relationship. I thought it was too fast but I didn’t mind as it was necessary for the plot to go forward.
I totally did not expect Merkle to be a little boy but as the movie cut out most of the family plot involving Sophie and Howl’s family, there was no reason for Merkle to be a young adult. Honestly, I wish they kept that plot in as the loving yet chaotic family would have provided some humorous scenes and would have continued the themes of looking beyond one’s external presentation to find their desires, and feelings are completely different from what is assumed.
I totally didn’t expect for the Witch of the Waste to be redeemed but I liked the message it was trying to convey in understanding your enemies and befriending them to break the cycle of violence.
So while it is not completely true to text, I enjoyed the more linear, focused message the movie presents. The book is like a fun adventure of seemingly disconnected friends that are nicely woven together while the movie is a quieter, more poignant narrative.
What do you think of movie vs book? Comment below!
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Book Highlight: Rapunzel’s Revenge & Calamity jack
If you like Westerns and if you like fairytales, these are for you!
Really, they should be everyone cuz comics are cool but that’d be too after-school special. However, I just found it amazing because the fairytale genre just doesn’t have a lot of western AUs. School or towns full of fairytale characters, yes. Erotic interpretations. Darker and edgier versions, but this is the only fairytale western and it is a rollicking good time.The premise doesn’t divert too much from the original tales but it takes plenty of leeway in deepening the characters. In Rapunzel’s case, she was the indifferent child of Mother Gothel, desperate to see beyond the estate’s wall only to find out the true poverty that lays out in the New World colonies thanks to Gothel’s tyrannism. She also finds out her real mom works at the slave mines. With this shocking revelation, she pushes back at Mother Gothel for all her lies and gets suitably imprisoned in the middle of a swamp tree. The isolation doesn’t cow her to submission but gives her years train her long braids into lassos.
Oh, and she teams up with a morally bereft thief, where their time together helping the other citizens of the Wastelands and other New World colonies brings them closer and reminds the thief that money shouldn’t make the world go round but concern for fellow citizen.
And no, that thief isn’t Flynn Rider. It’s Jack of Beanstalk fame which is actually very clever as he fits the archtype perfectly. He is a thief because of his poor background and his stealing came from good intentions to uplift his mother’s station in life. Also the whole good-hearted yet somewhat unsocialized girl softens the cynical thief came before Tangled. Yep, this was published in 2007 so take that, Disney.
The Hales make a point in treating both as equals. Rapunzel is initially concerned that she is naieve about the world what with everyone’s concern about money over kindness before others. But then she decides it’s not naievity, it’s just the right thing to do. That certainty of doing what is right allows her to stand her ground against Gothel’s method of hardening her so she could take over her empire. Badass.
And Jack is great too with his improvised plans, and brief moments of care for others. Yes, he hides it under reluctance and eyerolls but when he gets into it, he is Rapunzel’s biggest supporter and throwing fire at coyotes, stealing guns of kidnappers and fighting sea serpents.
Of course, his own novel goes more in-depth, detailing his ostracisim, his former bad deeds, his adorkability in trying to admit his feelings to Rapunzel, and how he truly redeems himself with the wit and improvisation that he previously led him to believe that he is just a dumb luck naer’do well.
Nathan Hale’s art shine (no relation to the married writers) as usual, blending humor, grit and sincerity in equal measures. The detail is everywhere. You can see the dust amd the saloons, and lush green paradises. Also the world-building between the more rural New World colonies and the steampunk-esque city where Jack is from are completely different yet blend easily to the whole Western aesthetic.
Basically, it has everything. Action, humor, development and even betrayal and burgeoning romance. A very inventitive twist to some classic tales.
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Ranking Jem and the Holograms
After rereading the series over the year, I have to rank the arcs because let’s face it, some are just more totally outrageous than others.
- Viral: The second volume of J&tH brings some more depth and nuance to all the characters. ANd by that, instead of a black and white battle of Holograms vs Misfits, the Misfits get their own sympathetic backstories especially with Pizzaz’s car crash, showing that they are as much of a family as the Bentons are. In a more dysfunctional way. The Holograms have their own interesting work as they are now officially successful and have to maintain that success while keeping Jerrica’s secret. Plus Rio gets his own limelight issue. Just a great balance of BTM drama, humor and character development. Plus this volume as the fun Christmas special where both bands are forced into secret santa with each other.
- Showtime: The Jem and the Hologram story is pretty basic if you already know it, but Thompson and Campbell’s killer team-up of design, writing and all-out talent, they manage to make the origin story feel brand new with engaging fast-paced plot.
- The Misfits: This spin-off focuses on entirely on The Misfits and their reality show. A cash grab in order to outshine the Holograms and recoup some money after their previous bad behavior and cancelled concerts. And it does the job by launching their comeback and bringing readers onto their side, going into their backstories, dealing with size insecurities, learning disabilities, neglect, abandonment and finding confidence in music and the bad.
- Totally Outrageous: The final arc doesn’t feel final as it wasn’t supposed to be. Damn IDW for cancelling it too soon! Yet I have it fourth in the ranking because I enjoyed the Holograms vs the Stingers banter and sabotoge which gave them more to do than in the actual arc they appeared in. See below. Nonetheless, it does serve its quality of dramedy and friendship feels.
- Dark Jem: Dark Jem fully utilizes the world’s sci-fi trappings by revealing that a virus, Silica, is taking over Synergy, and wants to take over the world using the Holograms’ sonic soundwaves. It’s a mash-up of rockstars saving the world ala Totally Spies. It’s a diversion where the rest of the series is strictly semi-realistic, dramedy but it does it so well. However, because it feels like such a diversion, it ranks lower. Still the Holograms/Misfits team-up absolutely rocks!
- Enter the Stingers: The second band that encroaches on Jem’s territory has an interesting edge in that it is bringing the European sound to U.S. audiences and provides a real rival for Jem’s affections, I mean Jerrica’s affections. Which is precisely the problem as Jerrica starts to suffer an identity crises where she literally can’t separate between Jem/Jerrica, subsequently Rio/Riot. However, that interesting plot is skimmed over and solved in less than two pages. I felt like I was missing several issues! Apparently coporate was rushing the comic so they can cancel it already which was such a shame. However, it introduces Raya and she is super sweet. Unfortunately, she also suffers the same lack of character development.
- Dimensions: If you like to be a completist, or you want more Jem in your life, this anathology provides fun adventures by a variety of artists and writers. It’s slice of life, unrelated to the rest of the arcs so ranks lower. But my favorite story was that of the karoke competition between the bands.
- Infinite: Basically this is just a sci-fi spinoff where the bands end up in a dystopian dimension of themselves and work to bring about its revolution. It’s just so random and disconnected from the rest even though it takes place right after Totally Outrageous. If you like sci-fi AUs fine, but it wasn’t for me.
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Author Highlight: Michelle Moran
I have already extolled Moran’s virtues in historical writing in previous posts but after several more books in her catalogue, I have to expound on how deftly she immerses the reader into the ancient world.
It probably helps that she had previously majored in archeology and has travelled extensively on dig sites so she has a ‘real world” connection to the Egyptian saga (Nefertiti, The Heretic Queen, Cleopatra’s Daughter). I mean, obviously modern Egypt is different from ancient Egypt but I imagine exploring the temple ruins and such does give you an idea of what it was like back in the heyday, coupled with the research and histography archeologist go through in contextualizing the artifacts in connection with the cultural, political and personal beliefs of the people in that era.
That’s why when one reads her work, you can easily picture the setting and atmosphere of the palaces as Moran walked in their steps herself.
In regards to her characters, she does an excellent job in blending the personal struggles alongside the political. In Nefertiti and The Rebel Queen, she chooses to have the narrator not be the famous queens (Nefertiti and Rani of Jhansi) but people close to them in court. Initially, I was disappointed to see these women not through their own lens but percieved through others but narratively it makes a better choice as it illustrates that we can’t quite ever know how these women thought as their stories can only be pieced together by the remnents and stories of others.
An overarching theme throughout all her novels is the protagonist being in love with someone else but having to choose duty or forced by their relatives to take a political match over happiness. We see it in The Second Empress where Marie Louise marries Napoleon to gain his favor and unite the French to the Hapsburg Empire. When Nefertiti’s sister has to marry a court minister so Nefertiti can continue her religious overhaul in Egypt, and so on.
However, staying to close always proves to be the more dangerous option. Not only from opposing revolutionaries but jealous rivals like Marie-Louise having to contend with Josephine’s supporters as well as Napoleon’s sister who wants to marry her brother in a throw-back to Egyptian royalty. It’s all connected and very incestuous, seriously insane. But that’s what makes it entertaining as Moran puts a human spin on these famous figures, highlighting their foils, flaws and success.
The most powerful would be in The Rebel Queen which takes on the underrated (in the U.S.) story of the Rani of Jhansi who used legal and militarial means to take back her kingdom from British colonial rule. Truly, a ruler of the people, the Rani amassed a following by personally leading battle, training soldiers (including an all-female contigent) and selling her valuables to clothe the poor.
These are great books, even if some tropes get repetitive, as it serves a nuanced view of historical figures contextualized in their respective eras. Nefertiti is a visionary but pragmatic, ruthless and unmoving when it comes to changing her plan when it provokes backlash from her own people. Marie-Louise is an ideal empress, being docile and bound to duty but learns to harnass her voice and stop bowing down to political pressure and seize her happiness (while siccing the Haspburg Empire on her ex-husband). Rani is generous, intelligent and a warrior, but unknowable and secretive except to her inner circle for good reason. All worth knowing more of and should get big-screen debuts.
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Rachel Reads & Reviews 