Anima Rising: Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is unapologetically irreverent.

If you’re familiar with Moore’s novels, you already know this. If you are unfamiliar with Moore, you really need to know this before opening any of his books.

Whether it’s a satire of a pulp fiction detective or science fiction, such as his “Noir” and “Razzmatazz,” or parodies of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” with the book “Fool” and its sequels, or his wild takes on historic figures such as the mystery among the French Impressionists in “Sacre Bleu,” Moore sprinkles his novels with the sensibilities of dirty jokes.

Which can be off-putting to some people.

In his latest novel, “Anima Rising,” the book opens with a trigger warning that states, among other things: “Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, if you are listening to this book in audio format in the car, with a kid or your grandma, turn on something else. Now.”

Good advice.

Otherwise, damper any ideas of political correctness and settle into Moore’s take on another genre. Here, he parodies the “Frankenstein” story with plenty of twists. Though the front-cover blurb describes it best: “Klimt, Freud and Jung meet the Bride of Frankenstein.”

In 1911, Austrian painter Gustav Klimt discovers what appears to be a drowned woman in a Viennese canal. The extraordinary looking woman, whom Klimt names Judith, is not dead though she has no memories of her past. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung help Judith recall her past dealing with Frankenstein’s monster in the Antarctic more than a century earlier.

Moore re-tells the Frankenstein story then builds upon it with brutal, bawdy sass. Some readers will likely be reminded of the 2023 Emma Stone film, “Poor Things.” Both works bear some similarities, in terms of direct and indirect comparisons to the Frankenstein story and feminine sexuality around the Frankenstein story.

For Moore fans, “Anima Rising” is a welcome addition to the author’s works.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: The Kryptonian Age

Yes, another Batman “event.” There’s a reason for so many extra Batman stories. People buy and read Batman books.

Here, DC Comics returns to the classic setting of “Gotham by Gaslight.” Published in 1989, with the creative team of Brian Augustyn, writer, Mike Mignola, artist, P. Craig Russell, inker, David Hornung, colorist, and Mark Waid, editor, “Gotham by Gaslight” placed Batman in the Victorian age, facing Jack the Ripper in the Gotham City of the late 1800s.

The book is considered the first title in what has become DC’s “Elseworld” line where familiar characters are placed in different times and situations. Other Batman “Elseworld” stories have set the character in the Civil War, turned him into a vampire, have challenged him with a religion-led government, have him in possession of a Green Lantern ring, etc.

“Gotham by Gaslight” is not in the same class of classic Batman tales such as “The Dark Knight Returns,” “The Killing Joke,” “Arkham Asylum,” “The Long Halloween,” “Hush.” But “Gaslight” is arguably at the top of the second-tier of best Batman stories.

“Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: The Kryptonian Age,” released throughout 2024 and now collected in a one-volume edition, is not in that same class.

Creative team Andy Diggle, Leandro Fernandez, Matt Hollingsworth and Dave Stewart serve up an intriguing story but it isn’t so much an “event” as it is another Batman in another Batman story. Arguably, if there had been as many Batman stories back in the 1980s and early 1990s – and there were a lot even then but not like there have been since and are now, “The Dark Knight Returns,” “Killing Joke,” etc., may not be remembered, let alone beloved, all these decades later.

Here, Batman delves into a mystery that may affect the entire world as Kryptonite becomes a new precious stone … and something possibly otherworldly that might rival the power of mankind’s greed.

Make no mistake, Batman fans should enjoy “The Kryptonian Age.” In a world with fewer Batman tales, it would be a stand-out, but in a deluge of Batman comics, it falls like just another Batman “event.”