The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: jay-ell on January 09, 2008, 03:23:29 am
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So, I've been reading the first four books of Ex Machina (http://www.dccomics.com/graphic_novels/?gn=2500), a graphic novel about a guy who can talk to machines like Dr. Dolittle can talk to animals. It's very cool, very bloody, and very thought-provoking -- not necessarily in that order. Anyone else into these?
If you're not, but you'd like to be, book 1 is available for free download at the link above.
If you are, what do you think? I don't think it's the greatest writing I've seen in a graphic novel, and certainly not the best art, but despite the sometimes gratuitously violent gore scenes, it is a smart book. I don't think it's as smart as it thinks it is -- it's no Uncle Sam -- but it's not the philosophical cotton candy that is the new Buffy comics, either.
Thoughts?
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Oh Vaughn... How I love you.
This is the best comic ever. In my mind when I read, Kremlin has the same voice as Vlad.
I recently just started on Y: The last man.
JAM?
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Great, another Thing to spend Money on. Comics are a weakness of mine, although I tend to stick to graphic novels and trades these days because I find them slightly more cost effective (sorry, traditioanl comics industry) and actually more enjoyable method of reading my comics.
A quick count reveals roughly forty volumes on my shelf. Yeesh.
*edited to correct for ineptitude at using italics*
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I'll look at Ex Machina in a bit, sounds cool, but first anyone else reading 100 bullets? I'm slowly working through the trades and they are hell of awesome so far. Also chomping at the bit for the next Queen and Country.
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Never got around to 100 Bullets yet, but I should, considering how everyone loves it. I think I flipped through the first issue, and there were naked chicks fighting in a prison shower or something? I don't know, just didn't appeal to me based on that, mostly. That and the art in that issue. Probably should give it a second look.
The main one that I follow religiously is Fables, and I pick up other stuff randomly. Oh, and Hellboy. I'll have to check out Queen and Country.
Question: Did anybody else ever read Atomika? I have like the first 4 issues or something but I don't know if it continued on. My impression was that it was to be a miniseries of some sort. But, the subject matter was right up my alley, with old gods of the elements and the earth and such being challenged by a new god of atomic power. Set in Russia. And the art was very dynamic.
Screw it, I'm looking it up again.
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I am such an unhip comic reader.
I read almost no indie/realistic stuff.
I read... Thor and X-Men and Green Lantern and Booster Gold and JSA and stuff.
Something in me still needs the mainstream superhero stuff, just now that I'm older I only read the better written mainstream superhero stuff.
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Never got around to 100 Bullets yet, but I should, considering how everyone loves it. I think I flipped through the first issue, and there were naked chicks fighting in a prison shower or something? I don't know, just didn't appeal to me based on that, mostly. That and the art in that issue. Probably should give it a second look.
The first one had a gang setting but it moves past that pretty quickly, I'm not a big fan of the art style but the story is interesting enough that I'm hanging on.
Also the chicks in the shower were only on one page and they didn't do any fighting, it was a fake out to make you think it was going that way.
Fables I've looked at a lot but never read.
LFM: At least tell me you reads you some Deadpool? I'm not a regular but damn it can be a funny book.
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Ex Machina is pretty good stuff. I should catch up with it.
Smets, the problem with JSA is that it's Geoff Johns' personal playground for the most part, and the problem with Geoff Johns is that he's basically Eau de James Robinson: smells a little like him, desperately attempting to be or at least evoke him, nowhere near as good. He wants to be the next in line to build the DCU's history after Roy Thomas and James Robinson, but the problem is that he fixates so hard on retro continuity porn that, unlike Thomas and Robinson, he refuses to permit any new story with his toys. This makes it all the more frustrating when he stumbles on the seed of a good idea (most recently Cyclone) and then refuses to permit any kind of possibilities to sprout.
I've found his Green Lantern work extraordinarily loathsome in particular, actively undoing and retconning pretty much every story since the 1970s that made Hal Jordan even vaguely interesting. His slogan is Hal Jordan Can Do No Wrong And If It Looks Like He Did Wrong It's Your Fault For Not Seeing Why He's Right. I used to be one of the few Hal Jordan fans remaining in comics fandom and now Johns has successfully made me entirely unable to palate the character. God damn it, Geoff Johns.
I hear good things about Booster Gold but I am hard pressed to motivate myself to try to find and read it knowing what Johns managed to do to other characters and teams I loved. I was an enormous fan of the Giffen/DeMatteis JL run, which is pretty much the defining Booster Gold material, and.. eugh. I really just don't want to see it flushed down the Johns.
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See, I'm the opposite of LFM. I'm unhip in that I don't read the mainstream stuff at all. I had to have Pedro explain some of the lesser characters in the X-Men movie, for pete's sake. I basically only read the stuff Pedro puts in my hand, which tends to be politically or historically based stuff. Or, you know, Buffy Season 8.
When I was a kid, as I recently noted elsewhere, I absconded with my brother's discarded Spider-man comics, including a reprint (I hope it was a reprint, because it's long gone now) of The Amazing Spider-man #5, the first appearance of The Lizard. He also had a bunch of Archies, although those might have belonged to my Dad's much-younger brother (who was 12 when my brother was born). I never really liked them, but I read them at least once. I was Not Supposed to read comic books -- they were for boys, you see -- but I never got in trouble for it, per se. Mom never would buy me new books, though -- I asked just about ever time I went to the grocery store with her and she always said no.
I wish I were better versed in the standard comics mythology, because I really enjoy comics but I feel stupid talking to real comic book geeks about them because I missed so much of the classic stuff by not having access when I was a kid.
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I don't read any comics that are printed on pieces of paper that are bound together. And I live about five blocks from a comics store, so it's not lack of accessibility. I just never have and wouldn't know where to start.
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I'm like JL as far as classic comics go, I like stories that I know have a purpose and are going to end, eventually anyway.
Although I'm taking this as an opportunity to re-iterate that anyone who can get their hands on a trade of old Spirit comics should pay any money and enjoy the awesomeness. Freaking art people. Apart from Ebony White, but they tend not to reprint the stories that he featured heavily in.
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I just never have and wouldn't know where to start.
Is that a cry for help? Because...I probably can't help you much, but some of these guys can, I'm sure of it.
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I read... Thor and X-Men and Green Lantern and Booster Gold and JSA and stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I totally groove on the superheroes as well. Thor and Captain America are my two faves. I just don't have the funds to follow all the titles that I would like to. I actually have a subscription to the Ultimates, left over from the last run. The current one looks like crap, though.
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Apropos nothing whatsoever, I really liked the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I saw the movie first, and enjoyed the book much, much more.
And I liked the movie a lot.
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I read Cap-A, Iron Man, and Spider Man. (Though I need to go to my box at TFAW. It's been neglected for 2 months).
I also read Runaways, which is what made me love Brian K. Vaughn, which is what brought me to my only non-mainstream title of Ex-Machina and well, I guess Y: The Last Man.
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Pedro was just telling me about Y last night. It sounds like a moderately interesting that could go really, really poorly in practice. He hadn't actually read it, only heard of it.
Is it really good?
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I don't read any comics that are printed on pieces of paper that are bound together. And I live about five blocks from a comics store, so it's not lack of accessibility. I just never have and wouldn't know where to start.
Wombat, I would recommend Watchmen (http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Alan-Moore/dp/0930289234). It is not an intro to comic books per se. It does make great use of existing conventions, character-types, and story form. It is the best thing I've ever read in comic-book form. It's self-contained -- like an actual novel -- so you don't have to worry about not knowing the characters or keeping up with an ongoing story.
There are different genres of comic books for all kinds of people, so don't think Watchmen is wholly representative of the medium. But I would say that if you don't like Watchmen, you probably won't like most of what's out there.
Synopsis: What if masked heroes really existed? Maybe one would be really powerful and upset the balance of power, thereby exacerbating the Cold War. What would the world be like? What if after many years of their retirement, someone started killing them off? How would these aging, pudgy, ex-heroes adapt? What happens when deeply flawed people try very hard to do what's right?
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What happens when deeply flawed people try very hard to do what's right?
I'm pretty sure they get impeached for lying to Congress about pecadillos with White House interns.
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Wombat, I would recommend Watchmen (http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Alan-Moore/dp/0930289234).
This was the first graphic novel I read as an adult, because Pedro put it in my hands and said, "You must read this."
It was his sneaky way of making me even geekier, all the better to breed geekiness into our kids.
It has become, to me, the graphic novel by which all others shall be measured, and found wanting.
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Pedro was just telling me about Y last night. It sounds like a moderately interesting that could go really, really poorly in practice. He hadn't actually read it, only heard of it.
Is it really good?
It starts strong and then meanders off into not-so-great territory. At least it never quite goes bad in the ways you would expect it to go bad; it finds alternative fuck*ng-up options.
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I've only read the first volume of it. They're still setting things up. It's not as good as Runaways or Ex Machina.
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And I liked the movie a lot.
Really? I never read the comic (though I understand it's vastly different) but the movie just seemed to have so much potential that it just pissed away and the ending with the dodgy green screen fire background was serious MST3k territory. I still really enjoyed it but not because I thought it was... good, you know?
Except for Dorian Grey, he was pretty pimp.
Oh tying this thread to all the sexy threads in hidden hills has anyone read Moore's new book, the Lost Girls? Not exactly something you can read on a bus but I've heard broadly good things.
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Oh tying this thread to all the sexy threads in hidden hills has anyone read Moore's new book, the Lost Girls? Not exactly something you can read on a bus but I've heard broadly good things.
Lost Girls is hell of not a new thing. He's been doing it on and off for years, hopping from publisher to publisher with new issues here and there. I dunno, I didn't find it all that interesting when I read it.
If you like it, the "Cobweb" stories in America's Best Comics are also Moore/Gebbie collaborations and in my opinion are generally better work.
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Sorry to resurrect a thread here, but I just picked up the first volume of Ex Machina, based on JL's recommendation. And it's great. One imaginary internet person has affected the life of another imaginary internet person.
I was Not Supposed to read comic books -- they were for boys, you see -- but I never got in trouble for it, per se. Mom never would buy me new books, though -- I asked just about ever time I went to the grocery store with her and she always said no.
See, this is basically the opposite of my experience. Dad loved comics as a kid and was a huge Marvel fan who had a lot of the seminal stuff from the 60's. His dad, however, didn't see the value in them and ended up selling them all for (literally) pennies. It's kind of cool to go into one of those comic shops with your dad where they have the really valuable old issues way high up on the walls, and he points up and says, "Ooh, I had that one, and that one..." Issues that had left our price range, but that he had originally bought for pennies.
What I'm saying is: This was a bonding experience.
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I just purchased and devoured the second volume.
So. Nice. I even finished it before I broke into the six back issues of Buffy I'd had on order. Don't know how I got so far behind on that one. I'm going to have to sign up for a subscription through Heavy Ink if I want to keep up. It's just too hard to drag the kids to the comic shop every month at this age.
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Dad loved comics as a kid and was a huge Marvel fan who had a lot of the seminal stuff from the 60's. His dad, however, didn't see the value in them and ended up selling them all for (literally) pennies. It's kind of cool to go into one of those comic shops with your dad where they have the really valuable old issues way high up on the walls, and he points up and says, "Ooh, I had that one, and that one..." Issues that had left our price range, but that he had originally bought for pennies.
What I'm saying is: This was a bonding experience.
I have a friend whose father sold his copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 because his wife was going to have my friend, and they really needed the money. Spider-Man may have lost his uncle, but he kept my buddy in bottles and diapers for a while.
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So. Nice. I even finished it before I broke into the six back issues of Buffy I'd had on order. Don't know how I got so far behind on that one. I'm going to have to sign up for a subscription through Heavy Ink if I want to keep up. It's just too hard to drag the kids to the comic shop every month at this age.
I was really affected by the whole Rubicon dialog between Yorick and Hero.
That's my brother and I... except I'm on the other side. My parents have me up on a pedestal because I was always just so smart. My brother had to work hard for everything he got. It always bugs me when the conversation starts. I'm doing pretty well, I have the house and the job that is pretty much like play to me, but I know in my heart I could have gone farther (I wouldn't trade my life for anything, just so you know).
My brother had problems learning and understanding numbers, and worked his ass off. He's now an Air Traffic Controller. I have to admire that far more than ... well:
To demonstrate, I took weightlifting to graduate high school.
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I think that's something felt by quite a few people. I definitely wonder if I would have done better overall if I had actually had to work to get good grades. I'm definitely the most book smart of my siblings, but never had the best grades. My two younger brothers, although smart, may not categorize as gifted, but they have done quite well for themselves so far.
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My brother's the smart one.
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In birth order among my brothers and myself, the smarts ranks go 1,2,3. The work-hard ranks go 3,1,2. I'm the oldest...both my brothers will probably end up earning more than me, unless I get lucky in the IPO sweepstakes at a future start-up. Brother #2 loved the comic books, although some of his more fabulous ones have gone the way of financing higher education. Not a bad use for comics, IMO. I was the D&D freak, although we all played. I was DM for a long-running campaign my youngest brother and his friends played for a jew years after I got out of college (high school years for them). They were starters and 2nd teamers on the football team, so let it never be said that D&D and jocks don't mix.
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All of my siblings are smart as all heck.
My sister, the youngest, I think does not get it that she's really smart, and is in this bullshit 13-year-old-girl thing where she only cares about stupid shit.
my brother works really hard, but is not that motivated, if that makes sense?
As in, if he has to do something, he will do it THE BEST IT CAN EVER BE DONE (basketball, advanced math and science classes), but he doesn't seek out new things to do on his own.
i am pretty goddamned lazy, and it has never bitten me in the ass until now. I would like to think I am getting in better habits nowadays, though.
There is a difference, though, between my laziness and school and my un-laziness in other areas. My boss over the summer commented that I was a "hard worker" and that was the first time I had ever heard that phrase in relation to myself.
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...and his friends played for a jew years after I got out of college...
I'm looking at my keyboard here and have no idea how I transposed j for f - they're home keys on different hands for chrissakes.
My boss over the summer commented that I was a "hard worker" and that was the first time I had ever heard that phrase in relation to myself.
In the semester after I flirted with academic disqualification, I tried to turn things around by becoming a peer counselor for new students (getting involved, etc). This ended up being a genius idea, and marked the beginning of jaydub: the years he got shit together. One of the high water points came when we were getting together after successfully launching a flight of new frosh into the delights of college life, when we were debriefing and a senior guy said "If I really need something done, I know John's the guy I can turn to." That was definitely the first time anyone had ever said such a thing, and frankly, had most of the people who know me been there, they would have dropped like stunned mullets. I hadn't realized how seriously I had been taking my responsibilities with that team until that moment - when anything came up I was consciously taking care of it as soon as I could, because the idea of fuck*ng up yet another new opportunity in my life would have been intolerable.
That simple, almost off-the-cuff statement from someone I respected may not have been the sole turning point in my life that got me off the spiral into failure, but it stands out in my mind as an experience I wanted to repeat. Somehow I was able to internalize the things I was doing in that one setting and apply it more generally across my life. These days, I still have my share of dropped balls, but few people would call me a flake in any serious way. I guess this is what "growing up" means.
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My little brother isn't as smart as me academically and has no real interest in that sort of thing but he sure as hell works a ridiculous number of hours at whatever part time job he holds at a given time. Hopefully once he finishes the uni degree he doesn't even seem to want to do this will translate into something useful to him in his career. I pretty much coasted through high school and it never really hurt me until maybe year 12 maths C but it was certainly eye opening when I saw people who in high school I easily surpassed getting crazy grades at uni while I was just about average. Took me a while to figure out how hard you have to work for it, hopefully not too long.
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Graah! Brains!
Um, since this is sort of the current default comic thread, I just wanted to say that I just read the first volume of Powers. I declare it excellent and fit for human consumption.
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Graah! Brains!
Um, since this is sort of the current default comic thread, I just wanted to say that I just read the first volume of Powers. I declare it excellent and fit for human consumption.
Powers was recommended to me by Fred Perry (a guy I know at work). Fred is so into comics that he wrote this book interviewing a comic writer and artist (http://www.ink19.com/issues/april2008/printReviews/modernMastersSchultz.html), so when he says Powers is good, I bleev it. From the sound of it, Powers is exactly what sf/fantasy is supposed to be: an exploration of the human experience from outside its bounds. If the world were absolutely and completely different from the way it is, what wouldn't change? Initially it's the fantastic setting that provides interest for the reader, but by the end of the piece, it's the familiar that proves fascinating. I look forward to reading Powers to see if it lives up to your declaration.
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I look forward to reading Powers to see if it lives up to your declaration.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your magazine.
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In the semester after I flirted with academic disqualification, ... jaydub: the years he got shit together. ... "If I really need something done, I know John's the guy I can turn to." ... I guess this is what "growing up" means.
I reread this post today. It's really a great essay. It's reveals a little bit of life in an honest straight-forward way. I know it's just a little post to your imaginary friends, but I recommend you hold onto it. You could even rewrite it for style and submit it as prose to some place interested in that kind of thing. Anyway, I'll hold onto your story (long with Ash's description of political correctness) and it will affect the way I see the world.