Comic Reviews and discussions

[E.O.T.]

HOLY SINISTER PLOTS,

          Batman!!

[Doktor Howl]

YEAH I MOVED  the JokE'$ to FF#11
& yes of course i have more Junk than i know /-/oW to USe for example
tha counter fit dime? what to do? I will no doubt try to load 98 1st then xp
the firefox in the mean time its wash day. by by CR&Lf

so: yeah i fished it out with My | fish it out
hook,

Hirley0 has a fish it out hook.

I am oddly terrified.

I suspect hirley0 has ALL SORTS of things.

The crisis deepens as Nigel uses a nuclear warhead, delivered by a surface-to-air missile, to destroy incoming Alliance B-52 bombers attacking Portland.  The Alliance responds by detonating a battlefield nuclear weapon on the soup factory a few blocks from her house.  Hostilities temporarily cease.  The Alliance is gripped by fear: as supplies and food run low, some retailers resort to profiteering, with looting and rioting erupting. "Known subversives" (including Discordians and some Subgenii) are arrested and interned under the Patriot Act.

[Faust]

so you're reading quite a bit of back catalog stuff. The new JL Dark series, which is changing writers soon already, is the most "shade" stuff I've read, not sure if it's the kind of character I can be interested in. That JLDark series is really floundering around in my opinion. I was excited to see the use of those characters in a story but it's just going nowhere. I am hugely NOT a fan of Jeff Lemire (the new writer) so I don't think I'll be able to follow it much longer.

JLDark started out with an interesting idea, had one fairly standard threat to fight while establishing the characters.... And then it immediately went into a terrible cross over with a bad vampire comic.
I'll give the first issue after the vampire thing a look and if its not any good I'll drop it.

          for commenting on "the boys", I think Ennis can be a really fun writer. His beginning story arch on "Jennifer Blood" is hilarious (do no bother grabbing that rag after like, issue 6 or 7 though). His "Crossed" is just ridiculously unbelievable, every page had me going, WTF?!!

I've been meaning to read crossed soon, but even just looking at the covers makes me feel ill.

          I never picked up anything by Brian K. Vaughn before this new "Saga" series started, but I'm now almost finished (75%) with "Y: the last guy" and I'm really liking it. Vaughn is able to bring a lot of topics into play without moralizing over the issues and his characters have real identities, they're not just delivering dialogue.

I liked Y, though I never finished it. I sort of lost interest at the last hurdle. If you want to read something of his that is visually beautiful, though short he did a series called Pride of Baghdad, it's excellent. well worth a read.

          I'm not familiar with what is on the shelves over in Britannia, but there are at least a couple of things I'm enjoying that are out right now.

Mostly the same, Diamond hold a monopoly as distributors. Though that never effects me. I only buy series retroactively. I download and read everything and I buy all the good stuff. Comics are too expensive to be buying shit.

          terry Moore is also a writer/ artist who I've never checked out, but his new "Rachel Rising" title is pretty cool. It's B&W, he writes and does the art, which I really like.

I have it but haven't read it yet though you are the second person to recommend it to me in the last couple of weeks.

          Any comments on the "new 52"?

Wonder Woman is excellent. Their best running series as far as I am concerned and as of issue 8 it still has no connection to superhero comics. Playing it off as a huge family feud between the greek gods was an excellent idea, they are such assholes.

Apart from that a lot of stuff is losing steam, the batman titles are in some silly crossover now and the only reasonably good one is just Batman. Catwoman is beautifully drawn and very sexually aggressive which of course angers the white night neckbeards so I'm enjoying it no end.

I enjoy the green lantern stuff, specifically Green lantern, Green lantern new guardians and red lantern. The first two are changing around a lot of the green lantern staples and the third is an ambitiously drawn but not well refined comic with semi decent writing that though weaker then everything else I still read for some reason.

Otherwise there isn't much else. Superman and action comics are tripe. Justice league is well drawn and trying new things with the characters, but it's set in a story going through the motions with Darkseid again. It's only been a year or so since final crisis.

I read every other titled until about issue five but dropped most of them around then.

          my friend Brian Churilla has a new, fantastic title on ONI Press called the "Secret life of D.B. Cooper" that everyone needs to be reading.

Will give it a look.

          I'm finding that I really like this Jonathan Hickman guy, he can really pull off a super complex story line and make it very readable and he manages to balance like, fifty characters, even if the reader can't. I'm not always up for that kinda challenge in reading his stuff however, like his "ultimates" stuff just gets waaay too labyrinthy for me, I like nick fury, but not THAT much.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned S.H.I.E.L.D which is his league of extraordinary gentlemen. It has a lot of characters but it's a very unique take on the marvel universe, which for the most part bores the pants off me.

          new stuff you're enjoying?

Currently running but not wonderwoman? Not much except Clive Barkers Hellraiser. It's the first official sequel story he has done to the first movie, and it is excellent. Best hellraiser story since the first one, even the second film was very cheesy.

[Faust]

Jonathan Hickman:

The Nightly News - excellent
The Manhattan Project - beyond excellent

Pax Romana - not so much

THAT

          nightly news looks boring, what's it about?

HA, YEAH

          his manhattan projects is totally cool, he's the perfect writer for alternate history stuff.

Nightly News is a horror story about a cult that's dedicated to killing news media personnel.

There are no good guys, incidentally.  It's grim as hell.  To get the full effect, you have to read all the sidebars and comments.  Also, the color of the panels is important.  He explains it in the back of the trade paperback, but try to figure it out yourself.

Nightly news looks great, it's been on my to read list for a while.

[E.O.T.]

HA HA

          i can't imagine any of the other "crossed" story arc's touching ennis's for pure amazing f'd uppedness. i don't know if i want to own it, but it's a classic of some kind. the checker at the grocery store commented how much she liked the story when she saw me carrying the book and i told her there had to be something wrong with her.  if she hadn't been so tall i'd have asked her out.

WONDER

          woman huh? i'm intrigued. the art kinda turned me off in the previews but i'm excited to check it out cuz i'm pretty sure no one's ever told me i outta check out wonder woman. it doesn't seem like writers are able to stick with that title.

          batwoman is a title i've been reading because it promises to be the deal, and the art is phenomenal (the occasional Amy Reeder contribution rules, she's the greatest artist in comics!!), but the real character seems to elude writers thus far.

THE WHOLE

          batman crossover with the owls is annoying me. i was so psyched about tony daniels writing AND drawing "detective", and the new "batman" is GREAT!! the new "batman & robin" is quite good, i can absolutely do without the perpetual crossover gimmicks though. the court of owls was a cool 3-5 issue story, but really... the batman "odyssey" by neal adams was so fucking nutty and amazing, holy f!! if you haven't it's a total adventure into batman fantasy, the collected is on its way. as i said earlier, the batman inc stuff by morrison is super. i love a good batman detective story, dammit!

STORE

          owners and cool folks here are trippin on "prophet" and "orcblood" quite a bit but i can't seem to get into either

ADVENTURE TIME

          is also all the rage!!

AS

          are the avengers, despite that bendis has lost his mind quite a while ago, it seems, do most likely to having the entire marvel universe as his play thing for a decade or something

ALTHOUGH

          he did a great commentary on portland police out of handedness last year called "scarlet" which i hope never has a sequel cuz it's perfect

RAGEMOOR

          is totally worth the trip.

[Faust]

WONDER

          woman huh? I'm intrigued. the art kinda turned me off in the previews but I'm excited to check it out cuz i'm pretty sure no one's ever told me i outta check out wonder woman. it doesn't seem like writers are able to stick with that title.

There are only eight issues, eight consistently good, well written issues. Its Brian Azzerello of 100 bullets, though he has had a few misses he is generally an excellent storyteller.

          batwoman is a title I've been reading because it promises to be the deal, and the art is phenomenal (the occasional Amy Reeder contribution rules, she's the greatest artist in comics!!), but the real character seems to elude writers thus far.

It is beautiful art but the mythological story is a very hard thing to push on the reader for a first story arc, couldn't they have given us a grounded story before going into that.
The real character does elude the current writers, but    Greg Rucka almost had it with elegy. It's a shame they didn't give him the title again.

          batman crossover with the owls is annoying me. i was so psyched about tony daniels writing AND drawing "detective", and the new "batman" is GREAT!! the new "batman & robin" is quite good, i can absolutely do without the perpetual crossover gimmicks though. the court of owls was a cool 3-5 issue story, but really... the batman "odyssey" by neal adams was so fucking nutty and amazing, holy f!! if you haven't it's a total adventure into batman fantasy, the collected is on its way. as i said earlier, the batman inc stuff by morrison is super. i love a good batman detective story, dammit!

Batman and robin has reset Damien to the whiny dangerous kid again which is a shame, I loved it when Batman was Richard and he was robin but otherwise it was a pretty good story. Odyssey scares the shit out of me. Every issue starts with Bruce talking to the readers point of view with his hairy chest exposed, the idea is portraying him as a charismatic character, but what we actually get because of fruitloop writing is Tom cruise levels of crazy.

          owners and cool folks here are trippin on "prophet" and "orcblood" quite a bit but i can't seem to get into either

Will give them a look.

AS

          are the avengers, despite that bendis has lost his mind quite a while ago, it seems, do most likely to having the entire marvel universe as his play thing for a decade or something

I actually feel a bit sorry for him. He is ending his run of avengers and starting his X-men one with a pheonix story, they have been done to death and something implies that marvel pushed him towards writing that.

          he did a great commentary on portland police out of handedness last year called "scarlet" which i hope never has a sequel cuz it's perfect

RAGEMOOR

          is totally worth the trip.

Another couple I'll add to my list. I finished Grant Morrisons Book last night. While the man is an insufferable egotist who in his own mind has inspired every other writer, however he is a very good researcher and there is a lot of interesting detail about the history of comics in it. I feel kind of mean, I skipped all his autobiographical parts.

[E.O.T.]

YOU KNOW

          i never really read all the batman family stuff, so the idea that Bruce Wayne had this son Damian was news to me, not long before beginning to read this new series. I did a little wikisearch on the Robin(s) character and now i understand Damian a little better, but over all, he's a pretty ridiculous and hard to believe figure. regardless of what death cult ninja warriors raised Damian in his youth. but in a spider-man kinda way it's a fun read. It sort of reminds me of the Frank Miller "all-star B&R" a little. damian is a future dahmer chuck norris or something. that wiki article was worth the read just for clarifying all the different robins as batmans as well.

[Faust]

YOU KNOW

          i never really read all the batman family stuff, so the idea that Bruce Wayne had this son Damian was news to me, not long before beginning to read this new series. I did a little wikisearch on the Robin(s) character and now i understand Damian a little better, but over all, he's a pretty ridiculous and hard to believe figure. regardless of what death cult ninja warriors raised Damian in his youth. but in a spider-man kinda way it's a fun read. It sort of reminds me of the Frank Miller "all-star B&R" a little. damian is a future dahmer chuck norris or something. that wiki article was worth the read just for clarifying all the different robins as batmans as well.

When he is first introduced he steals the robin outfit and returns to the mansion with a criminals head on a platter to the utter horror of Bruce, Alfred and the then robin Tim. It was that kind of alien nature of him that entertained me no end so he's warmed his way into the characters that interest me. He is useful where Richard and the other robins weren't in showing what a completely incompetent parent Bruce is.

[Faust]

I read Fun Home by Alison Bechdel last night. I really love the comic medium when it is used for autobiographical work.

I don't want to talk to much about its plot because to do so would be to spoil it so I'll give it an outline; Alison Bechdel writes about her relationship with her family and the death of her father alongside her own difficult sexual awakening as a lesbian.
The fun home in the title refers to the what children used to call their business, the funeral home.

This is accessible to anyone, even people who wouldn't normally like the comic medium. It's excellent.

[Cain]

This might be of interest: China Meiville is writing Dial H for Hero for DC.

Artist Mateus Santolouco opens the story with a vista of a rundown industrial town. The narration reads, “Littleville. Gotta love it. It’s had better days. But who hasn’t?” The city’s condition is tied to the condition of the protagonist Nelse. Like many of us, he is an unemployed millennial. The reader learns that since losing his job and girlfriend, the once curious and athletic Nelse has become dangerously obese and devoid of interests. Though under 30, he just suffered a heart attack. The economy is literally killing him.

He encounters the H-Dial as an anachronistic pay phone when trying to call for help for a friend, a thug in the employ of organized crime, who is being beaten by other thugs for failure to perform a work task. As Nelse tries to dial 911, he finds himself transformed into a grim and whimsical Victorian figure named Chimney Boy. He uses the seemingly sentient smoke billowing from his top hat to form smoke gorillas and smoke wolves which nearly asphyxiate his friend’s attackers. The weirdness continues from there.

[Faust]

I just read the first issue there. It's good, really good. Firstly its refreshing to see a superhero story that isn't tied into any existing characters and secondly the art and writing are good. The dialog on the first couple of pages is a little cumbersome but it swiftly gets a lot better.
As it's only the first issue it's hard to say where this will go but I'll be following up on it.

[Faust]

Before watchmen is going to have a very double edged sword effect for DC. Obviously the sales are going to be good, at least on the Rorschach issues.

But more and more people are becoming aware of how Moore got fucked over by the company. It's dragging the ugly side of comics out into the cold light of day. And in a Nerd medium the ugly scale can go a lot farther then you would imagine.

[Faust]

          terry Moore is also a writer/ artist who I've never checked out, but his new "Rachel Rising" title is pretty cool. It's B&W, he writes and does the art, which I really like.

Its really dark, the theme of violence against women kind of freaks me out but the writing and art are both solid. Enjoying it but it's tough going.

[Doktor Howl]

Before watchmen is going to have a very double edged sword effect for DC. Obviously the sales are going to be good, at least on the Rorschach issues.

But more and more people are becoming aware of how Moore got fucked over by the company. It's dragging the ugly side of comics out into the cold light of day. And in a Nerd medium the ugly scale can go a lot farther then you would imagine.

Moore, on the other hand, is a fucking loon.  Just saying.

[Faust]

Before watchmen is going to have a very double edged sword effect for DC. Obviously the sales are going to be good, at least on the Rorschach issues.

But more and more people are becoming aware of how Moore got fucked over by the company. It's dragging the ugly side of comics out into the cold light of day. And in a Nerd medium the ugly scale can go a lot farther then you would imagine.

Moore, on the other hand, is a fucking loon.  Just saying.

So are pretty much all the good comic writers.