This week in the book section, Jonah Spangenthal-Lee and I look at a whole bunch of different comics:

There's a neat little import:

This French comic reads very much like a lost Tintin adventure, if Tintin were a virginal dominatrix working in a brothel plagued by a serial killer.

Something extra creepy:

When EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt died at the hands of crazed parents, Senate subcommittees, and the Comics Code Authority, horror comics took a dirt nap for nearly a decade. Thankfully, Warren Publishing picked up exactly where EC left off, pumping out books like Blazing Combat, Eerie, and Creepy in the mid-'60s.

A comic book about the Joker that barely includes Batman:

Then Ronald Reagan happened, and Batman comics got all dark and miserable.

A comic that adapts I Saw U ads:

There are a few variations on the idea that men who place missed-connection ads are creepy, balding, old, and fat, but a few artists play up the romantic angle to great effect. Adam Kidder's cartoon is a two-decade-long odyssey involving a dead grandmother. Cathy Leamy magically transforms a colonoscopy into something adorable. Kazimir Strzepek tells a tragic mini-romantic-epic about how missing the 43 bus to the U-District can change a life.

And a sad Vertigo comic book:

Look. I liked Sandman as much as any self-respecting comic-book nerd. But looking back now, I'd be perfectly willing to somehow make it so Neil Gaiman never wrote that comic book, just so DC's mature-reader line didn't read like a orgy of Sandman fan fiction.

I hope you'll read the whole thing.