"Hellblazer: Rise and Fall" is written by Tom Taylor and the art is Darick Robertson. John Constantine assists Detective Aisha Badhuri in investigating a case of murdered bussinessman with angel wings sewn into their backs. It also has a link to a childhood tragedy both characters were present for. It's a decent romp for ol' Johnny Conjob and perfect for people looking to get into John's illustrious comic book career. It's not set in the DCU but he tends to jump in and out of it anyway so just go with it.
"The Dreaming: Waking hours" is written by G.Willow Wilson and the art is by Nick Robles. It centers on two differents characters, Lindy whose a single mom working on her grad studies as a Shakespeare scholar and Ruin the newest nightmare who doesn't want to be a nightmare anymore. Their lives intersect when Ruin tries to escape to the real world via one of Lindy's dreams. She accidentally gets trapped in a dream house where Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, Sheik Zubhayr and Anne Hathaway (not who you're thinking of ) all live and debate who actually wrote shakespeare's famous plays. Meanwhile the lord of dreams learns of what Ruin did and has to sort it all out.... Despite sounding complex, its pretty easy to follow and very welcoming to new readers looking to join the Sandman universe.
"Pulp" is a graphic novel written by Ed Brubaker and the art is by Sean Phillips. It centers on Max Winters a former gunslinger who escaped the West and ekes out a living as pulp comic writer for a magazine. It's a hybrid of the film noir genre and the western, succesfully using one set of tropes to inform the other set.
I read the first half of K.M. Weiland's "Creating Character arcs". That portion covered the 4 act structure of a positive change arc- the most common storytelling setup. She also has questions and excersizes at the end of each chapter which is helpful.
I read the first twenty chapters of "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk.
