24 Hour Comics collects nine of the earliest comics ever created under the rules of Scott McCloud's ridiculous challenge. The challenge is: write, pencil and ink a 24 page comic in just 24 hours- and the clock doesn't stop ticking if you fall asleep. These artists prove you can create a whole comic story in just one day, and also that as cartoonists get tired, the stories get morbid. A slightly mixed bag, but interesting to read.

Orbital vol 1: Scars is a sci-fi comic very much in the vein of Star Wars. In the 23rd century, the human race is admitted for the first time to the intergalactic, multiracial peacekeeping organization which overlooks the galaxy. This story follows the first human cadet allowed in, and the other enforcing officer he is partnered with- both of whom soon realize that humans are not welcomed by all into this new alliance.

This book is extremely beautiful and well drawn, but there is one aspect of the art that I would like to complain about here for a minute. Why, oh why, do all of the extraterrestrials have to be basically humanoids with a few extra arms and blue or orange skin? I know why they usually are in movies- budget reasons, cheaper to have aliens played by humans (though with CGI that's not the excuse it used to be). But this is a COMIC. The illustrator could have drawn the aliens whatever way he wanted! It costs nothing more to draw them as bowls of liquid, clouds of gas, intelligent plants, or mountain sized slabs of sentient silicon. And yet, sadly, pretty much every non-human in this book is... basically a human with weird eyes or fur or tentacles instead of arms. Very well draw, mind you- just not very different from us.

The Name of the Rose is a wonderful medieval murder mystery. It is set in an unnamed Italian monastery during the year 1327, when tensions between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were running high. Adso of Melk, a Benedictine novice, travels to the monastery with his teacher William of Baskerville, a Franciscan Friar, to help negotiate a talk between agents of the Pope and agents of the Emperor. They arrive to find the monastery in an uproar- one monk has already met a dreadful end, and more victims soon follow. William uses a mixture of medieval logic and Holmesian deduction to trace the killer's steps, while Adso (serving as his Watson) keeps notes, eventually writing down the whole bizarre set of events and their horrible conclusion.