I got mugged by Borders graphic novel section the other day

Grant Morrison sets Sebastian O in an alternative 19th century, and follows the dandified Sebastian's escape from prison and revenge on the people who put him there. It's the Count of Monte Christo on drugs and without any of the subtlety, really.

Exodus is the latest in Mike Carey's Lucifer series, a Sandman spinoff. Unfortunately this is getting rather repetetive: a new enemy turns up from somewhere, Lucifer is nearly defeated, he has another argument with the angels, he wins by some means. Fundamentally Lucifer is too powerful to have interesting adventures, and the backplot does not advance enough in this episode to carry it. The activities of the minor characters are more interesting though it'd be nice to see them pursuing their own goals more rather than just carrying out Lucifer's missions.

The Furies is another Sandman spinoff, and also by Mike Carey. It starts out with the wreck of Lyta Hall's life, before packing her off to Greece to be a pawn in a confrontation between mythological forces. Lovely artwork, though I didn't find the the story very engaging.

Finally in 1602 Neil Gaiman transplants a bunch of Marvel superheroes and villains back to the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and convolves them with the intrigues of the day. Quite a few were only passingly familiar to me, so others might get more out of it than me, but I found it the best of the four in any case.

Expelled from the entire public school system

sheffers asked for five songs. I'm going to ignore “at the moment” as I've not been hugely concentrating on music lately (one might deduce this from the currently rather slow pace of DisOrder development).

Frontier Psychiatrist (Avalanches) is kind of silly, but seems to have been consistently on the edge of my mind for a while now. It got me buying the album after hearing at work, at any rate.

I've always been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys, and pushing my rebellion against the original specification to the limits I'll pick Domino Dancing, one of the first tracks of theirs that I clearly remember, as my second. (West End Girls I was already familiar with by that point but it was DD that got me really paying attention.)

My most recent purchase is Apply Some Pressure (Maximo Park). I can't remember exactly where I originally heard this, though it was almost certainly on the Random Walk, which I've found an excellent source for interesting new stuff.

Blue Movie (Sneaker Pimps) stands out for me from hard competition from its siblings on Bloodsport. Doubtless my weakness for punning is part of this, but the sound of it is captivating too.

Finally You Are Here (Banco de Gaia) proved a more interesting listen than the earlier Last Train to Lhasa (which nonetheless finds its way into my ears from time to time). I'll just say the whole album, being as it is rather quite closely integrated.

Of course having written all that I've put them on, bringing truth back to “at the moment”.