SPEAKING OF COMICS: Alias is awesomely awesome. Took me a while to get sold on the dialogue (which is the element that everyone had recommended), but I eventually did come around–and the pictures! So nifty! So not-boring! So actually-using-comics-to-do-stuff-comics-do-best!

All kinds of standout pages: the intertwining necklaces of images and speech balloons in the very first meeting between Jessica Jones and her lady client (hey, why are there no page numbers?); the interrogation-scene brick wall made of panels that gets exploded in your face two pages later; the pages paneled like bandages or uneven, vertical Venetian blinds. These weren’t just showoffy tricks, but choices that heightened the story’s drama and rhythm.

Wow. I was super-impressed. Big thanks to those who recommended Brian Bendis’s dialogue; he’s great, and he’s the reason I picked this up, but honestly I think I would have liked this at least two-thirds as much if the dialogue had been replaced with the birdscratchy things Woodstock says. Will be checking out the rest of this series (the link above goes to the first book), for sure.