BATMAN: DARK VICTORY by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

Batman: Dark Victory, written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Tim Sale, was originally published as a miniseries in 1999 and 2000. It is a sequel to Batman: The Long Halloween. It takes place early in Batman’s career, and focuses on a serial cop killer, the Hangman, who murders on holidays. Meanwhile Harvey Dent has escaped from Arkham and is waging war on Gotham’s organized crime families. This story also retells the origin of Robin.

Loeb, as usual, tells an engaging story. He does a good job balancing a fairly large cast of characters, although he waters down Batman’s rogues gallery by cramming virtually all of them into this story, then making them incredibly easy to defeat.

Sale’s art is stylized and exaggerated. There are often vast differences in the sizes of characters, and his sewers are like cathedrals. But overall, the art works.

There are a few grievous plot holes here. The Hangman is killing cops on holidays, and the cops know this, yet most every protagonist in the book has trouble keeping abreast of upcoming holidays. Batman knows that Harvey Dent and his minions are using the sewers to hide out and move around, yet he can never find them. Nor is he aware that the sewers conveniently lead right into the Batcave. The mind fairly boggles.

Overall, though, Batman: Dark Victory is interesting enough to overcome its flaws, and, while not as good as The Long Halloween, is entertaining enough. Read The Long Halloween first, as Dark Victory relies heavily on it.

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SUSHI: TASTE AND TECHNIQUE by Kimiko Barber and Hiroki Takemura

Sushi: Taste and Technique is Kimiko Barber's and Hiroki Takemura's guide to preparing, presenting and eating sushi. The book is thoroughly illustrated, and features photography by Ian O'Leary on nearly every page.

Sushi is thorough in every area. It gives a brief history of sushi, and information on the equipment and ingredients for sushi preparation. There are simple, easy-to-follow recipes on how to prepare sushi ingredients like omelets and soboro, and there is amazing coverage of the different fish, squid, octopi and oysters used for sushi, and how to cut and prepare each of them. The book also gives very detailed instructions on how to assemble scattered, stuffed, pressed, rolled, and hand-formed sushi. The book concludes with information on eating at a sushi bar, sushi etiquette, and other tidbits.

If you're looking for a book on sushi, it's hard to imagine one better than this.

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SUSHI MADE EASY by Kumfoo Wong

Sushi Made Easy, by Kumfoo Wong, is an introductory guide to preparing and presenting sushi. The book is targeted to beginners, and at only 80 pages, is completely manageable.

Sushi Made Easy provides an introduction to the more prominent sushi ingredients and kitchen utensils and equipment needed, as well as advice on how to select suitable fish to be used raw. There is a great deal of emphasis here on appearance and presentation. Sushi Made Easy covers nigiri-sushi, sushi rolls, hand rolls, rolled sweet omelet, and soups. The book is fully illustrated, and features step-by-step instructions for making each recipe.

Sushi Made Easy is an excellent introduction for anyone who wants to make sushi at home. It is also available through Amazon as part of sushi starter kits that include utensils and equipment.

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BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

Batman: Arkham Asylum, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean, was originally published in 1989. The fifteenth anniversary edition also contains Morrison’s original script and storyboards. The inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over the institution, and will only release their hostages if Batman comes inside. Batman deals with his own sanity as he confronts the usual crowd of villains.

Dave McKean’s art is dark and atmospheric, and it fits the book perfectly. However, it’s often so dark that it’s difficult to tell what’s going on, and a look at Morrison’s script shows that the art doesn’t incorporate half the imagery Morrison was going for (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

Morrison goes for image overload here. Christian, pagan, and mystic imagery are through the roof. Morrison throws all of it into the pot with the pretentious treatments of Freud, Jung, and psychology in general, and what we get just isn’t very good. There are other problems. Batman seems poorly characterized here, particularly at the beginning. He’s chatty, out of control of his emotions, and publicly vulnerable.

The jacket to Arkham Asylum trumpets that it is “the most successful graphic novel of all time.” I can’t imagine why. Ultimately, Arkham Asylum just isn’t compelling.

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