Batwoman: Elegy tells two stories. The first is of Batwoman taking on a villainess named Alice who has plans to gas Gotham City with chemical weapons. The second story tells of how Kate Kane took up the mantle of Batwoman. In the first, the action occurs quickly and ends half way through the book after Alice’s failed attempt to unleash the weapons, but strands of the Alice plot line interweave into the second story as we find out who Alice might be. Told in a series of flash backs, Kate Kane grew up a military brat with a twin sister, Beth. Her father received a promotion to be stationed over seas. There, she, her mother and sister are kidnapped, and the bloody rescue only saves Kate. Later, upon nearing graduation from West Point, we find that she’s a lesbian after refusing to lie under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Determined to serve, she becomes a vigilante, supported by her father’s military connections and her own variation of the Batman symbol to show “whose side” she’s on.
The story by Greg Rucka tells an origin in an interesting way, but as interesting as Kate’s origin is, it feels like one long denouement. Perhaps it could have been woven better with the Alice story. J.H. Williams III’s art actively moves around the page, but at times it seems too frenetic with overzealous layouts. However, Batwoman/Kate Kane are drawn realistically, unlike some comically drawn, female super heroines.
, a collection of “digital paintings” at night with a digital camera. The majority of the images are ghostly and ethereal. Stark figures in golden tones against a black backdrop, light trails down a street, neon glows from a casino. A few are stunning but for the most part the book contains good pictures that work better on a whole as a body of work. The random photos of naked women taken with film, jarringly contrasts the preceding 30 or so pictures as if you were listening to soft trance music and someone turned on a buzz saw.
philosophically explores the premise of life as a series of games and infinite games. Finite games have an end and rules may not change, whereas infinite games are never ending and the rules must change. Directly, think of Super Mario versus World of Warcraft. With the Mario games, there’s a set of rules (stomp the mushrooms, fireball the goombas, save the princess, don’t die), but with Warcraft, there’s an entire world with a constantly changing set of rules and dynamics of play.
using pictures from the 
by Jo Cryder should contain the subtitle Wrought Iron of the American Southeast. The majority of the pictures are snapshots and hardly vary. I’m not sure if it meant to be a coffee table book or a sampling for Southern belles to fence in their magnolia trees.